what point do we acknowledge that the entire thing is an enormous exercise in speculation? No one has any real idea what’s going to happen to these “currencies”, most don’t understand them (even a little), and very few of them seem to promise any real, tangible “value” outside of what someone may be willing to purchase them for on a given day. There is no underlying asset value that I can tell. The one exception to this would probably be Bitcoin which I know is actually able to be used as a currency in many places.

Those are the reasons I haven’t jumped in with both feet. If I end up missing out on some speculative gains then fair enough, but if I don’t understand the currency, it has no real underlying value that I can measure and the price fluctuations are basically impossible to determine I feel like in the long run I’m going to be better off by instead investing in other vehicles.

Also, when you take into account trading costs, short term capital gains taxes, and the deflationary mechanisms built into many of the newer coins to punish sellers and reward holders, much of the gains in value they make exist mostly on paper and are eroded significantly if you try to liquidate then.

What am I missing here?