It's an interesting argument, really.

Nothing actually backs USD currency, except our labor, which is really our time. The gold standard was removed long ago, and gold is actually severely undervalued, as if some unforeseen committee is paying to keep the price of gold not as valuable as it should be. So really, we go to work, we all believe we should get paid, so they pay us in these US Treasury notes that don't actually mean anything, but society accepts it as a whole. The value of $1.00 is based on time.

If I go to work as a programmer and make $24.00 an hour, than 1 hour of my time is worth $24.00. If I go to some fast food restaurant, whose workers are getting paid around $9.00 an hour, their time is given that value. The value goes up with the more education you have, the more knowledge you have, and the more in demand you are. The less skills required to do the job, the less value is assigned to your job. Who sets these standards... is an interesting question just the same: we almost set our own value in some way or another, but you can't walk into a fast food restaurant and demand more than what they are willing to pay.

The one thing that cryptocurrency has going for it is:

- anti-bank people are more likely to switch it, trusting it over a bank

- people in third-world countries with no access to the bank system can use it

- people believe in it as an idea that can be used as currency

The issue with cryptocurrency is:

- at this current time, the only way to "get bitcoin" is to actually trade in the money of your country for it

- at this current time, it is functioning similar to the stock market, but is insanely volatile (once in late/early 2015/2016, the stock market had a hiccup -- LinkedIn's value was $250 per share one day and then dropped to $100 the next, and just a month later, skyrocketed to $190 -- unpredictably and where exactly did the money go? Did everyone pull out their money at the same time?)

- 1 bitcoin is not worth $1.00 USD or the value of $1.00 worth of any currency

- everyone can stop believing in it, take out their money all at the same time, and then it is just useless

There are companies spawning up to make it so that you can actually get paid in Bitcoin via salary.

The only value, just like a US dollar, is the value people are willing to give to it. At the moment, 1 bitcoin is worth upwards of $18.5k.

There are also other cryptocurrencies out there too. So where might they play a role? For most of the world economy: very few companies accept cryptocurrency. Though some may start accepting X coin. If no one accepts X coin, than you can trade all of your other cryptocurrencies for that X coin.

I've watched a few documentaries on the start of Bitcoin and Satoshi... and while I believe Satoshi had a great idea for this, I do believe it has been largely misinterpreted for what it was actually supposed to do. I could be wrong... but there is no guidance on this anymore.

As for the future of cryptocurrencies.. I don't think they are going to largely disappear, but may evolve into something greater. Bitcoin is a great lead, but it also manifests some uncertainties of still just being an idea of decentralizing money from the banks and governments. Now a search of bitcoin pros and cons.. will lead you to two sides:

1. You have people who largely distrust banks and government who will advocate for Bitcoin.

2. You have the government and banks who cannot have people largely distrusting them because without people needing to go through banks or government, there is no reason for these institutions to produce currency, which is what keeps them going, and they will likely denounce and be against all cryptocurrencies.

The Ideal Bitcoin

If you've ever watched Guardians of the Galaxy... they have something called "units" that seem to be valued across the entire spectrum of galaxies. As Marvel is tying in Avengers with Guardians of the Galaxy.. "units" exist in the same universe, thus... the idea of cryptocurrency isn't a bad one. Imagine in the distant future where humans and aliens of all species intermingle: exactly what will the currency be for trading? There probably isn't enough gold to be traded across the galaxy, so "units" would have to likely be measured in some type of labor transaction system.