It may seem counter-intuitive, but aren't all savings meant to be spent anyways?
CMC chart included, because we all love charts, and coins.
On the individual level, buying cryptocurrency may serve to increase the price momentarily. However what about the long-term growth of the crypto-world? The answer to that is to spend your cryptos wisely - in a manner that keeps the coins flowing.
How about if you could pay your bills using STEEM or Dogecoin? It's possible with conversion, but any transaction where someone is selling crypto for fiat will put a downwards pressure on the price. Ideally with more vendors accepting coins directly there will be a greater demand for cryptocurrency. However the final value will be determined by the market of buyers and sellers and how valuable the coin is to them at any given time. In terms of fiat currency the prices of cryptocurrencies fluctuate quite a bit, making them hard to hold on to as a store of value. However as a transactional token they work great - you can have a transaction confirmed globally in less than 2 minutes for free, if you use something smart like Dogecoin.
As we work towards a world where cryptocurrency is used normally everyday, we need more and more retailers to accept them and hold them. Fiat currency and crypto are competing enterprises, but they each have a monopoly. Cash - physical currency is great for paying for coffee, snacks, drugs, that kind of thing. However for stuff like bill payments and the like where a digital ledger and near-instant worldwide accountability is required, I think cryptocurrencies could fill that role relatively easy.
Just remember to think in crypto terms and practice what you preach. If you are telling everyone to HODL their coins while you're cashing out into euros, maybe think twice about how useful cryptocurrency is to you. For me it's been a fun adventure so far, I've learned a lot along the way. I will continue to promote and use cryptocurrencies and when the governments and banks try to restrict or ban them, I feel even more strongly that what we're working towards is on the right path.
Here's some real-life uses of cryptocurrency I have exercised:
Bought some BTC from my friend when it was at $9300, approximately $300 worth
Bought silver bullion directly from www.shibemint.com, using actual Dogecoins through coinpayments.net and gave my friends silver dogecoins
Sent my friends litecoins, ethereums, and gridcoins to fatten up their crypto-wallets
Helped my co-worker get started with a dogecoin wallet and sent him 10000 DOGE
Mined countless coins on the Equihash algorithm, CPU chugs along hashing monero, constantly supporting the networks directly
Helped my girlfriend get started with her own Bitcoin wallet and funded the first 0.1 BTC
Used BTC to buy some Amazon gift cards when I thought coin prices were a bit too high
For the moment, coins are breaking out of being a niche space and starting to make headlines everywhere. The growth trend is definitely positive, but we shouldn't champion a never-ending increase in price because that would essentially create what is called a bubble, or ponzi scheme. Slow and steady growth in userbase, transactions and network hashrate is what makes crypto value grow naturally. As the wise shibes of the dogecoin community say: 1 DOGE = 1 DOGE. Very zen-like and simplistic but the message is deep. If we think only in DOGE then does the price in dollars even matter anymore?
I am looking forward to being able to use dogecoin directly to buy plane tickets for my next vacation in 2020.
What are your crypto-plans? Let me know.