ZMB OTOH probably had a weak currency and an economy largely dependent on imports. Therefore when they started printing money it became worthless since it was a proxy for a currency they didn't control (the USD), and a strengthening of the USD would have a huge impact in reducing confidence in the ZMB dollar. A similar thing happened in Venezuela and Post-WW1 Germany I think.

For a better explanation see Big Debt Crises by Dalio.

[1] particl.io

[1] particl.io

Particl doesn't thanks to MAD escrow - https://particl.wiki/learn/marketplace/mad-escrow/

Just about all of mine

You clearly don't understand what "intrinsic value" means if you believe this. The very fact it can be fabricated into something of value gives it some intrinsic value.

No. The only question that matters is will people collectively continue to agree that it's worth something, lacking any intrinsic value?

If interest rates go up and people need to call in their assets to repay their debts, what do you think will happen? Would people rather lose their houses or their bitcoins?

I think people will dump stocks and risky "assets" like BTC and take flight into cash with some percentage in traditional safe havens with a proven track record (like gold) until things settle down. This is exactly what happened a year ago. There's no reason in my mind to believe anything would change regarding BTC's status now - I think it'll be dumped like it was last year. It may recover faster (I'd certainly buy it for a heavy discount), but I just don't buy the "store of value", "digital gold" argument.

It's an early-stage speculative asset IMO - let's not pretend it's a stable, low-risk store of value.

> A house depreciates over time

Tell that to people unable to buy because house prices have shot up. Property can also generate a good rental income - yield obviously dependent on the price paid. BTC doesn't provide any such perpetuity.

Because in the good times, people think these things are great investments. But as soon as things go south they look at what they have from a different perspective. Something with some intrinsic value (e.g. a "bunch of atoms" that can be eaten or lived in) is likely to be much easier to rationalise holding on to in that scenario, rather than something that's only worth something due to consensus by a bunch of strangers.

And that's the risk - it doesn't matter if as an individual you see great potential. If everyone else disagrees, gets scared and sells, then BTC could be battered.

Until then, it's potentially a great investment in today's climate (especially if you don't care about the climate).

Once it does, we're likely to see a depression at some point [1].

Since Bitcoin is famously volatile I'd bet that once there's a scare, people who've pumped the price up to the current highs will abandon it in droves. After all, there's a huge difference in risk between buying in <$5k vs ~$30-50k

[1] https://economicprinciples.org/

Speculation and free marketing I expect

This is the big problem with crypto. Trust moves around. But there is one solution: escrow backed by smart contracts - see here for one implementation [1]

Personally I think what we'll see in future is people being offered the option of going through existing institutions as a form of insurance for the reasons you mention, but an alternative on offer for people who just want to minimize fees or who don't think they'll need those conflict resolution services.

[1] https://particl.wiki/learn/marketplace/mad-escrow/

Projects like particl [1] are creating a decentralised, anonymous marketplace with very low fees. Imagine being able to sell on ebay or amazon and only paying pennies in listing fees.

This is an early stage in crypto but the trend is inevitable.

[1] https://particl.io