Absolutely not. Bitcoin's initial narrative was "digital cash", i.e, digital payments and microtransactions. Given that transaction costs became prohibitive, it switched to "digital gold", or store of value, meaning that Bitcoiners defend the idea that Bitcoin's reason d'être is just to hold it.
I've never seen Vitalik or any of the core Ethereum developers talking about the value of Ether being a fundamental metric of any kind. The incentives are made in a way to maximize utility of the blockchain, not the value of its base currency.
The "beginning of crypto" was with Bitcoin, can we agree to that?
Can we agree that Bitcoin was not claiming to "be a general platform to power distributed applications"? If you disagree, refer to the whitepaper that says "A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System".
Can we agree that before Ethereum each chain was just a fork of Bitcoin, and that the token (aka "the currency") was "sold" to others as something that would have its value determined by supply and demand, but that the blockchain had no use that was not connected to transactions related to the token? As in: fundamentally speaking, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Cash... are the same?
Can we agree that Ethereum (the blockchain) enables distributed applications where people do not care at all about the price of Ether? E.g, I can host files on Storj and pay with credit card, the people hosting data are being paid in Storj's token, and everyone involved in this economy is directly using the Ethereum blockchain, but don't need to hold any Ether at all?
BTC (and derivatives) were very much "just for holding". The fact that they hoped it could be used for day-to-day value transfers does not negate the fact that the system can only work with a continuous influx of capital. "You should pay something with BTC, but if possible buy back the USD-equivalent amount" was standard advice already in 2011.
> Saying you have some other use case besides asset appreciation is not a unique proposition.
>they hoped it could be used for day-to-day value transfers
And they said this, including Satoshi. Yes they were wrong, but they said it.
>Now, it isn't
It's never been unique, because every coin has said it including, as you have mentioned in every response so far, Bitcoiners.
You've also said Eth guys have said. What are we left with? Every other **coin has obviously said it. I'm not arguing they all mean it, or they've been right. I'm arguing they all said it.
> I'm not arguing they all mean it, or they've been right. I'm arguing they all said it.
Then this whole discussion is pointless. Why should we care about what people say or believe, unless it can be backed by their actions?
Instead of putting them all in the same bucket because on what they said, let's judge them based on what they did. And Vitalik has consistently shown that his work is aligned with the stated plans and vision for Ethereum.
You started the thread by saying you trust the intentions of a coin project based on them saying they're not in it for the money.
I just meant to point out that this was no special characteristic, as they all have done this. "Crypto" has been professing "use cases" since the beginning.
>Then this whole discussion is pointless.
Yes it certainly was, since you wanted to argue that you believe him, yet got caught up in trying to refute for some reason the point that they all say it. You say trust actions instead. Great, as long as we agree words are irrelevant particularly when they all say the same thing.
No, I said that he has argued (to justify the project decisions and work) based on his view.
I never said "I believe on what he has promised". I said "all he has done and delivered has been consistent with his professed views". It's completely different, and I honestly do not see how you could interpret what I said in such a twisted way.
This is has been said about every coin since the beginning of crypto.