One reason that has not been given, but may be the actual reason why many people buy and hold Bitcoin is its use as a betting instrument. That is, you buy it paying X dollars today in the hope that you will get >X dollars when you sell it at some time in the future. Of course, if it has no other value than that of a betting instrument, then this is really a game of "holding the bag" with the last people out getting screwed.
That is dead wrong. I mean, it's correct for probably 80% of the people dealing with Bitcoin, unfortunately, but the point of buying Bitcoin should never be to get more shiat coins back. That is the mistake of high time preference people!
I wouldnt even buy into his argument here, because then the whole concept of investing can be classified as a betting instrument. Its ignoring that the whole system makes it necessary for people to invest at the moment, because there are no interest rates that are higher than inflation since a long time now. This is literally one of the goals of inflation, to make it impossible for people to "hoard"(was called saving once) money, so the economy can grow faster, which doesnt work forever as were seeing now. The attempt to criticize something without going into the causes is short sighted. People have to use an alternative Store of Value, because inflation makes this a necessity. Phrasing it like people are gambling because theyre choosing Bitcoin is pathetic. Most new forms of money, that have the perfect properties of a Store of Value, would be used for this purpose first. This doesnt make it a betting instrument and its not Bitcoins fault for rising/ decreasing in value, maybe read what a market is.