Hmmm, it's my opinion that the comparison to 1,000 years of mining gold is a straw man argument. No one is going to argue that mining gold is a terrible, dirty business that destroys the environment - that has been discussed for decades.
It's very clear to me and especially after reading all the comments here that Bitcoin and other currencies are similar to a multi-level marketing system. The only reason why people are investing in them at this point (admitted by nearly 100% of everyone on this thread) is that they are hoping that someone comes along in the future and pays them more for it. That is the technical definition of a speculative asset, and very similar to how multi-level marketing works. The MLM systems depend upon other people buying up and replacing the investments that the early adopters have made.
Having said that, there is money to be made in MLM systems, *if* you're an early adopter. But, technically, it cannot appreciate without bringing more people to the party. Bitcoin currently has very little practical usage beyond being an untraceable method for illegal activities. Virtually one takes Bitcoin these days (not even Tesla any more). It's not very useful from a pure practical standpoint using the classical definition of a currency - it's more like a storehouse of value. But, its value is only built upon the willingness of people to accept it and trade it in exchange for goods and services, or a different currency that then can be used to buy goods and services.
The discussion of speculative assets goes bananas when considering Dogecoin. I'm not sure the people "investing" (betting) on this even know that this is an inflationary asset? The miners are minting something like 10,000+ new coins a day, so the crypto coin has a built-in "poison pill" that will self-destruct itself with time? Crazy - people buying this stuff are really naive and/or simply gambling. Then again, the Vegas casinos are a billion-dollar business, and people still blow money all the time there, even though they know they cannot win. Perhaps in the short term, the Dogecoin odds are better, as long as other people who don't know anything are buying in. Here's a good, brief article on why this is just a bad idea:
https://www.coindesk.com/buy-dogecoin-risk
Fascinating news today about Elon and Tesla abandoning Bitcoin because of its environmental impact (Bitcoin miners use more electricity than the entire country of Sweden). I guess Elon finally recognized the irony of being one of the most prolific supporters of reducing emissions, while advocating cryptos that completely negate that premise. It's depressing to think that the miners use that amount of energy just to "solve puzzles" that don't add value and don't improve mankind. It's actually quite sad to think of all of the coal factories in China burning coal just so that miners can mine Bitcoin. Sorry, it's perverse to me. I think this will be the sticking point and the end-all of the blockchain in the future. It's easy for me to imagine that the US and Europe will ban the use of Bitcoin due to the obscene energy waste that occurs.
We'll see...
-Wayne