Originally Posted by
Skydog
I'm very far from an expert but my thoughts: crypto isn't stable enough to be commonly used as a regular currency to be used for purchases and sales. Better to think of crypto as being in somewhere in between investing in a stock and investing in beanie babies, fine art or baseball card collections. Crypto is like baseball cards in that it has no intrinsic value, but it's like a stock in that it is has an agreed upon value at any point in time and so is easily purchased, sold and traded online. Like a baseball card or fine art most of cryptocurrency's value comes from society (or more accurately, a segment of society) agreeing on a value, and part of the driver of that value is perceived scarcity. Because unlike fiat currency (dollar bills for example) there is a firm limit on how much bitcoin will be made.
(Above is a layperson's elementary understanding of something he recently got into. It's value is as tangible as a Dogecoin!)
PS - A crypto purchase doesn't have protections like a credit card purchase does. And it doesn't have gov't insurance protections even if stored in crypto exchange. Coinbase (the new publicly traded exchange) claims to have private insurance for crypto deposits. But it's not that simple. Bottom line - there is definite risk in the crypto world, with estimates of that risk varying widely. And possible rewards. Ask the new crypto millionaires! Especially the ones who can find their passwords!