A good look at ETH would show you how its a platform - and an asset. Similar to the Microsoft ecosystem or the Google Play Store. ETH, essentially, is way for people to host their projects.
People often ask, "Why would I buy ETH?" To that I counter, why do you hold Microsoft stock? Because you know more products will be developed on the Microsoft. The same is true for Ethereum.
Yes, it is platform that affects the environment and also has high gas fees, but look at ETH (and blockchain in general) and you'll see it’s a launching pad for additional projects. This is it's value.
But before I dive into the benefits of ETH, I'd love to touch on the common hate on crypto.
Blockchain is promoting scams
Give me one industry that doesn't have scams? Email scams exists, but does that mean you stop building email marketing tools? Definitely not.
Yes, people are pumping crypto and promoting scams, but that doesn’t invalidate the entire industry or technology.
Blockchain makes the rich get richer
The internet makes the rich richer. We had a ton of millionaires in the early days of the internet and VCs were there investing and making billions. But from that crop of investment, we created the most successful group of self made millionaires. Now here we are today talking about blockchain.
There's no single industry that doesn't reward early adopters.
The late comers are left holding the bags
If you buy the Squid Game coin, well, you deserver to hold the bag. Keep that L. Think about investing in crypto projects like investing in companies, will you throw money into a new startup with a shady name and marketing ? Of course not.
Why open source?
With all said Blockchain is faaaaaaaar from perfect and is not ready for mass adoption but zoom out, look at it from the least biased view imaginable.
I hope my ETH doesn't need an update whenever I open my wallet.
Lol!
Disclaimer: Very surface level blockchain knowledge / general disdain for the hype
I'm not sure I follow the connection here. Are you arguing Microsoft is a platform and not a company? Or are you talking about Windows or their suite of tools that work together?
I hold $MSFT because the company itself creates value where on the outside, I don't see ETH creating value by itself. It relies on externals sources to drive this no? I could be completely off here because I'm very out of my element with this topic. Could you expand?
Sure, Microsoft is more of a platform than anything, A platform is a product that lets others leverage it to build on top of it.
Now ETH as a tech (take out the price) does provide value of security to builders and also monetary value to validators.
ETH also has the ETH Foundation that both develops the ETH Blockchain and also ships products on ETH
Also the does have monetary value however speculative
$MSFT provides value as a sole company but ETH provides value to builders all over the world (both as a platform to build on and as a funding source)
Now would you rather bet on one company providing value or an Entire suit of companies built on top of it
On the topic of Microsoft, Microsoft is an OS the value they provide is a platform for builders to build Windows software on.
When you buy Microsoft stock are you betting on the OS alone or the fact that you know tons of people are building on the OS?
ETH More or less is like instead of buying office word stock, then Excel stock then powerpoint stock, then slack stock, then buying every App built on the OS you buy Microsoft betting on the success of the Apps that would be built on it.
You buy ETH not for ETH as a currency but you're betting on the success of the Dapps that'll be built on it
Also i completely share your disdain for the hype