Because once the price stops rapidly going up, if there is no other reason to hold on to it, people will sell. If it's no longer working as an investment, and it's only value is as an investment, what other reason would people have to hold it?
Unless you think the value can keep increasing forever. If that's the case, can you name one example of something with no value whatsoever, other than that it's value was known to be increasing over a certain period of time, that continued increasing long term?
A good that has no use to any person other than the hope that another person may buy it from them later for a price higher than what the original person paid for it.
There's pretty much nothing that fits this bill. Can you give an example of such a good? "any" is a pretty strong qualifier. Cryptocurrencies are certainly useful to some people - whether or not it justifies current valuation is subject to debate of course, but you have defined yourself out of a category.
The OP's assertion was that bitcoin must have some use other than as an investment vehicle if it is to survive long term.
You asked the OP "On what principles do you base this assertion?".
If you arguing that bit coin is useful outside its use as an investment vehicle, and must be so to survive long term, you are agreeing with the OP.
If you arguing that bit coin is useful outside its use as an investment vehicle, but it doesn't have to be to survive long term, you need to provide an example of something that is not useful outside it's value as an investment vehicle that has survived long term.
1) Inherent value is a fiction. There is no such thing as value without intervening human judgement. Besides which by any sane and consistent definition cryptocurrencies have inherent value (decentralized trust mechanism... Not gonna judge whether or not it's worth the current valuations of cryptos... It's just nonzero)
Is there much decentralized trust in bitcoin? If you're using it like money, you still have to trust someone will give you goods and that your wallet software isn't going to steal your information.
We really are living in strange times. I can't tell if it's a brave new world or a hype train headed off a cliff.
Question: On what principles do you base this assertion?