Gavin's on record in stating that he has enough coins to retire, expressed during the heated debated of if he should be paid via TBF for his coding service, later revealed he earned over a quarter of a million dollars for his efforts then headed on over to MIT to get paid for his bitcoin related services over there.

I don't think thats the problem. It looks like a very interesting and powerful platform and problems can be solved.

The problem is that people place a speculative value on it which is based on a projected, notional, fully mature economy based around that technology. However, the market will always bring us back to earth and revalue the asset according to it's useful value TODAY.

For an Ether to actually be worth $10 of usefulness will take years. (And may never reach it due to endless supply+competition from other smart-contract blockchains). It may well get there, but the market price it back into reality in the meantime. If you can be bothered holding a huge bag of Ether for the next several years while its worth nothing, you could do ok (eventually). Most of the other money will go elsewhere and then come back when it's time.

Ether is not a monetary asset anyway - was not designed as such.