To answer the first part of your question, I don't believe that an initial historical reason for creating cryptocurrency was for investing. Even today I do not see cryptocurrency as a sound investment. I would even go so far to say that, in many cases, it is a horrible investment.
would even go so far to say that, in many cases, it is a horrible investment.
Yeah it's clearly a gamble/pyramid scheme.
I could see the original intention being an investment pyramid scheme. Since Satoshi is the OG, if he mined 1000 Bitcoin for himself prior to the release of Bitcoin, he'd be like a multi millionaire now
it could be a motivation but i think it was also to create something new that didnt exist at the time. Before bitcoin we didnt know a way to transfer money without middlemen. It was a great mystery to solve this issue, and Satoshi solved it, when he created Bitcoin, and since then we have seen lots of new and improved innovation in this direction.
I think the original intention was to be a payment network. Many people mistake Bitcoin only as currency. While Bitcoin is the native currency of the Bitcoin network, we have to remember that the Bitcoin network can also be used to transact other currencies.
I think one of Satoshi's visions could have been a payment network where fiat/stable currencies could also be transacted on a uncensored network. In this case Bitcoin would only have been used to reward miners and pay transaction fees, hence there would be no investment risk for the user. The native currency of such network has to be decentralized and unregulated, whereas other currencies can be kept stable by the issuer of that currency.
While this is not possible on Bitcoin, you can use Ethereum to transfer other currencies. For example there is USDC which is pegged to the value of USD and can be transferred just like any other cryptocurrency. There are also countless other tokens for different purposes.
@nutomic It is possible on Bitcoin (and forks) by using OP_RETURN. There are several examples of this, for example the Omni layer which runs on Bitcoin and Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) which runs on Bitcoin Cash (Bitcoin Cash is technically similar to Bitcoin).
Tether USD ran initially on Bitcoin via the Omni layer.
Chris Remington
in reply to thursday_j • • •thursday_j
in reply to Chris Remington • • •Yeah it's clearly a gamble/pyramid scheme.
I could see the original intention being an investment pyramid scheme. Since Satoshi is the OG, if he mined 1000 Bitcoin for himself prior to the release of Bitcoin, he'd be like a multi millionaire now
Anders Rytter Hansen
in reply to thursday_j • •Chris Remington
in reply to Anders Rytter Hansen • • •Anders Rytter Hansen likes this.
Anders Rytter Hansen
in reply to thursday_j • •I think one of Satoshi's visions could have been a payment network where fiat/stable currencies could also be transacted on a uncensored network. In this case Bitcoin would only have been used to reward miners and pay transaction fees, hence there would be no investment risk for the user. The native currency of such network has to be decentralized and unregulated, whereas other currencies can be kept stable by the issuer of that currency.
nutomic
in reply to Anders Rytter Hansen • • •USD Coin (USDC) | Crypto that’s held to a higher standard | Circle
www.circle.comAnders Rytter Hansen
in reply to nutomic • •It is possible on Bitcoin (and forks) by using OP_RETURN. There are several examples of this, for example the Omni layer which runs on Bitcoin and Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) which runs on Bitcoin Cash (Bitcoin Cash is technically similar to Bitcoin).
Tether USD ran initially on Bitcoin via the Omni layer.
nutomic
in reply to Anders Rytter Hansen • • •Anders Rytter Hansen likes this.
Anders Rytter Hansen
in reply to nutomic • •Indeed. It was rather political than technical limitations which limited its use.