If you believe that interest rates are too cheap and causing boom and bust cycles, then it could be interesting to see what a deflationary currency does, and if it does actually generate a death spiral of savings and fear of taking loans.
If you believe that everything humans value that can be digitized, is, and successfully. Books, movies, photos, music. Then it makes sense that currency would become digital in the same way. You can make it at home, you can mix it, and you can broadcast it, just like all those other things.
If you like the idea of the worlds fastest appreciating currency/commodity/whatchamacallit... How many things are out there that actually change the relationship between man and government and man and other men more than a well adopted crypto currency would?
And how many of those things can you make money on by providing liquidity?
I don't see putting money (as cash, or mining) in cryptocurrency as investing, but as speculating. See http://www.thesimpledollar.com/the-intelligent-investor-inve... for a classic discussion on the difference. I don't distinguish to be pedantic, but because the word "invest" is often used to mis-characterize spending or gambling in an unreasonably positive context.
Its nothing like years back when a $150 GPU could net you $5-10/day in BTC, directly. Of course that period didn't last long -- I dont think even this mildly-profitable altcoin-mining period will last too long either.
The money isn't meaningful and I'm 100% ok losing every dollar because I can't justify putting significant money in. That being said, I do know people who have made very significant money over the last year because everything keeps doubling.
Genuinely curious how do you know or assess that etherum or any other ICO will do well in the future ? Isn't there an equal or greater chance of the currencies collapsing ?
My friends, who are more interested in the space than I am, compare where crypto is now to the beginning of the internet. We're still trying to determine who's netscape/AOL/amazon/google and to some degree, what the underlying protocols are (tcp/ip = ethereum?).
Honestly, I don't see the true value of the blockchain yet. Most of the proposed ideas could be cool, but have no value or aren't practical. What I do see, however, is increased attention in Japan and Latin America. In the US, I think it's coming into mainstream attention. And if we find one real use case that allows mainstream adoption, it will be huge and transformative.
As a former trader, I don't mind speculating on the hype, but if we're still on the "ground floor" of what crypto could one day be, a little speculation could be a huge investment one day.
I think it is useful to sell pickaxes during this particular gold rush.
I did it as a game, because it was fun. When I realised that BTC price fluctuations keep up at night, I didn't thought it was fun anymore so I sold everything and never looked back.
I'm more mature now, have a good income from multiple sources which would allow to spend 10x times more but I didn't so far, no specific reason why.
Even as someone working in tech, or especially as someone working in tech, the idea of investing in an unregulated currency concerns me too much. Besides that I'd only be willing to put a small amount < 10% of my investments into it. Anecdotally there are a lot of news stories about bitcoin wallets getting compromised — maybe it's just the press being sensationalist but you don't hear the same about more traditional investment accounts.
I'm onboard with index funds and robo advisors and most other types of financial innovation, but no cryptocurrency has done it for me yet.
I'm not concerned about investing in cryptocurrencies since I don't invest that much. I do invest in it because I believe in the ideas of some them.
I would say my investment is probably similar to someone investing in a Kickstarter campaign.
I do however think people in hacker news are more in the safer investment side.. but that's why I asked the question in the first place.
2) ideology and or $$$