I don't think the comparison to the life of fiat currency is reasonable - no fiat currency outlives the nation-state backing it. It is a fair point that there

I don't think the comparison to the life of fiat currency is reasonable - no fiat currency outlives the nation-state backing it. It is a fair point that there could be other competing, but not dominant currencies, which could lead to a non-zero, but low price for bitcoins. So perhaps, 0, a lot, or anywhere in between for the value of a bitcoin. As long as the number of things you can buy with bitcoins rises over time, the value of bitcoin will rise. I don't think it is unreasonable that the momentum, including technology and community (not just brand around BitCoin) will make it a favored son in digital currencies. So it's not just buying it based on the prestige of being first, it's buying based on the value of being first. I actually bought my coins when YC invested in CoinBase, because I thought that was a strong signal. It will be an interesting future where people buy currencies based on their mathematically-dictated value profiles, as opposed to whichever currency is sold by the local government, and _seems_ to be the most stable.