Blockchains (like eth and its alternatives) sell blocks (compute with a ledger). Those blocks "have value" to the people who build things on them like NFT's, de

Blockchains (like eth and its alternatives) sell blocks (compute with a ledger). Those blocks "have value" to the people who build things on them like NFT's, defi, ponzi schemes, etc... One can argue that those applications don't have value, are scams, are unethical but people are paying a lot of money for those blocks on a daily basis; and holders of those L1 tokens benefit from that value. If you think of eth as a niche cloud provider providing compute with a ledger, then it looks like a stock who's long-term value will depend on useful and legal it's niche becomes after people (do or don't) come up with products and regulation is implemented. > cryptocurrencies which have no such relationship to the real world This is a key point unless the concept of the metaverse takes off; you're starting to see this change though. Look at the Coachella NFT as an example. People will pay to have guaranteed weekend 1 tickets for multiple years; there are years where this is basically sold out before public ticket sales but there's a status element to be able to go W1. These people (like young adults) will probably go for a few years, get bored (or have a change in lifestyle/priorities), then probably resell those NFT's to someone who's a few years earlier in their lives and wants guaranteed W1. This sounds like a ponzi scheme by the description many commenters here are using; the only value is getting some sucker down the road to waste their money for a guaranteed W1 ticket. There's a non-zero chance that coachella doesn't even exist 5 years from now. There's a bigger chance that it's not as popular and the value of any NFT is worth less then it is today. Yet it doesn't feel as scammy because of the real world event that's involved.