Over the past year, a growing number of people have leapt to take part in bitcoin’s meteoric rise. Teenagers have invested their college funds. Some families have mortgaged their homes and placed everything on the table. Even billionaires have suggested putting 10% of all assets into the digital currency.
There is a lot of money in play and people’s livelihoods and savings are on the line. As a vehicle of investment, bitcoin itself has an array of problems. It’s extremely volatile — suffering drops as high as 30% in a single day, funds are difficult to recover when hacked, and bitcoin’s technology may be behind other newer cryptocurrencies which offer greater anonymity, programmability, and scaling.
Most people tend to look at popular altcoins when they think about what could dethrone the current cryptocurrency king. But could the real threat come from a more material realm?