Comment Re:Volatility (Score 1) 476
You could have made very similar arguments about the early Internet.
The things that differentiated the Internet from other networks that were arising at the time, was that it was decentralised, pseudononymous and had a low barrier to entry. These are the same attributes that differentiate Bitcoin from traditional fiat currencies.
At the time, many technically adept people, most famously Bill Gates, considered the Internet to be a dead end. With hindsight, it's clear that they underestimated the power of a decentralised network that was cheap to join and easy to add new services to.
It's far from certain that Bitcoin will become as successful as the Internet; but I'm not sure I'd write it off so quickly.
Finally, tulip bulbs are somewhat different to bitcoins. One is something you put into the ground and which turns into a flower. The other is a cryptographically signed transaction history wrapped in unit of work proofs, providing a pseudononymous and decentralised way of transferring wealth across an arbitrary communications channel. The only similarity is that they were invested in by speculators.