seems to me that it is a product that derives its value purely on speculation -- luckily for them--all those who have bitcoin are incentivized to be proponents of it--thereby creating a rise that is similar in scope and manner to virality on the Internet--even if people were to recognize that the value of Bitcoin was derived purely from there being an incentive to be a proponent of it for those who have it--its not clear that this truth would have any bearing nor inspire any instinct for one to get rid of it--despite it not being tangibly valuable--obviously it is reliant on electricity being capable and internet being widespread--both those things are set to continue--so what could cause a mass selling off of Bitcoin? It seems like it has some internal mechanisms to stop the downward spiral virality that you see on things with similarly viral upward ascension--because there will always be people out there with a monetary incentive to convince those peopel who are starting to sell off bitcoin that they should not--and advocates/employees who are basically employed by the good out there spreading the gospel because --its like a sales commission for them to have more people use it--while it is a great benefit to have for those who were left or are provided with a sturdy keep by their parents--it doesnt help those who dont have the money to invest--but as a tool for upper middle class kids to do absolutely nothing and live in a better or as good living situation as their parents--it does slow down some of the wage disparity between that very very top and those who are comfortable--I wish I wasnt a broke tech entrepeneur because its a great thing to have money in--and it is like a part time job--gettin other people into it--raising the value of your money--I think eventually once you have some more competitors enter the market the margins on that upward curve will shift and will create competition that guarantees the paradigm of winners and losers--if one type loses--and the value gets more aligned with the ability to pick the winner in the marketplace--then I think you may see it start to become more of a gamblers fix--and the steady upward gains enjoyed by those currently will be distributed to those who correctly forecasted the specific bitcoin to back. Due to the fact that that volatility doesnt necessarily cause a net change to Bitcoin as a product--winners/losers will make it seasaw a bit more eventually than it currently is modeling on. It mimics what one would think would be the goals of a covert upper middle class organization that seeks to ensure the continuation of capitalism but realizes that capitalism inherently creates winners and losers--so to me, I would not be surprised if it was heavilly backed by foreign governments looking to gain some supporters and appease some of the population that is for the most part getting less poor relative to the proportion of the country's income--this could get people loyal to their governments, while (assuming the government were an earlier investor in this device that incentivizes loyalty and advocation) allowing the governmentts a fairly simple mechanism to collect public funds while appeasing upper middle class part of the population that would otherwise be unrestful --and using them to quell some of the more radical elements of the populist left--who want greater wealth distribuytion--Bitcoin synthetically enables those who would otherwise be loser in the capitalist system to be winners--and as it happens those same winners--are likely the same winners whose parents were also winners relative to their age group (how else did they get the money to invest)--so in that regard it can be seen or is seen by some governments as a tool of maintaining order, and meeting people's expectations--while kinda kicking poor people in the gut who are left to assume that they werent as good as their synthetically inflated peers who (like their parents) found a way to become richer than they--thus confirming an intuition that is not illogical and providing the perfect outlet for capitalism to continue to thrive. Its definitely not going somewhere for awhile, unless the creators have a mechanism for cashing out on everyones money--in which case I would have to lightheartedly chuckle as my now wealthier friends rejoin me on the startup train--whoever wins the war on AI may be able to synthetically mimic volatility and cause it to crash if he commits him/herself to that endeavor--but that would be very risky--unnecessary--but if executed properly with the right amount of capital and with a propaganda machine that acts as the first general AI --that can advocate as a human would--rephrasing that advocacy in manyy different ways--they could find a way to create the appearance of a mass fall--only to buy at a lower point--and then letting the AI be the advocates that the humans currently are acting as--im not planning on doing that though--but if someone else wins the AI war--who knows what they could do--and if they are real assholes--that could be a way for someone to monopolize or take a great amount of contorl of the product wiht