The part about producing no dividends, products or services is the key component of Ponzi scheme that I defined above.
That actually worries me most because it has not always been like that. There used to be a growing number of services and markets where you could buy things for bitcoins. There are even webpages listing places where you could spend your bitcoin. It has all been a couple of years ago and it seems to be gone now.
Now, the sad reality is that if you went down for a coffee the transaction fee would be 20 dollars and even with that fee you would spend all day waiting for the confirmation that you have paid and they actually may start serving your coffee.
So maybe Realist247 you are right with your diagnosis. A couple of years ago I would totally opose you, now I just don't know....
I've known about Bitcoin since 2011 and it originally sounded like a brilliant idea...as a currency. Fast forward to this year when most people say that it's not a currency (and how 8 years have passed and no one will fix the problems) but rather a store of wealth or digital gold...that's when the big picture became clear to me that something was very wrong and lots of people (most) are going to get badly burned.
Again, I must agree. It has been a couple of weeks since that exchange of ideas took place, and watch: it is not 20 dolar fee anymore, it is not rare that 120 dollar fee is mentioned by some users (although I was lucky to never pay so high a fee) and they sound to be OK with that. I had my analysis of bitcoin price grow curve (before I bought in) and one of the assumptions was that it was going to be used as digital currency. Now that assumption is failing. It seems my whole analysis is failing too. And probably I am going to get burnt together with all those other people, as you are saying