The sole reason people use bitcoins is to more easily transact dollars (or any currency) from one place to another.
But would it make any difference if bitcoin price was $1 or $0.1 for its use?
Let's say you want to send someone $100 dollars and than you buy 100 bitcoins, send it to him, he receives them and sells them to get his dollars. Transaction of dollars complete.
There is no need to hold bitcoins except for hoping price will rise, and there is no reason for price of bitcoin to rise except if people hold them because of speculation.
Therefore, price is almost entirely speculative, because if it was up to usage price would be small since everyone would be selling them the moment after they recieve them.
You could say you hold it because you can buy stuff with it, but really you can't. You're just buying with dollars bitcoin represents (you're transacting dollars again). One bitcoin means nothing, you need to have it expressed in dollars to grasp the meaning of it. People need dollars because they're legal tender and they pay taxes with them, while nobody needs bitcoin. They just need it to transact those dollars, but they don't need to hold them.
Yes, people speculate on Bitcoin. I don't think anyone can deny this. So what?
That people speculate on Bitcoin does not prove the price of Bitcoin is in a bubble that will inevitably pop.
Bitcoins have utility that dollars do not. Bitcoins can be spent to anyone in the world who has a phone or computer, in minutes, with no international wire fees or chargebacks.
Interestingly, there has been no RUN on bitcoin. And even more interesting, there is very little that would cause a run on bitcoin. Either it is stable and grows from here, or you wake up one day in the next few years and the price is at zero. In this view, it is safer than a bank. But if a bank is backed by unlimited US GOVT MILITARY backed dollars at least for the next few years I will stick with the military.
Some of the geopolitical shit going on in the world is fascinating when it comes to things like borders, immigration, military industrial complex.
If America did not have our current military, which other nation(s) would have invaded the US some 40-50-60-70 years ago. What is occurring now is almost like a zombie Apocalypse. Because there are borders, military, laws, etc, the geographical territory of the US is safe from all these foreigners(resource sucking zombies).. For now.
We are witnessing economic wars, currency wars, because a human war against us at the moment is a losing battle, unless you are brainwashed by ISIS.
This creates a horrifying orweillian future, perhaps the US govt wants chaos, so when THAT chaos passes, the relative perspective says, this feels much more safe and comfortable than it was before. Except now the govt went from huge to monstrous, and the zombies never let up, we live in fear of ISIS, favoring more military stuff inside this country. Until we are no better than ISIS as everything you consume will be regulated by the gov't. And by everything I mean EVERYTHING