Destroyed. If you look previously in the subtopic here , I predicted Ether would be $10+ back in February and I was correct. I bet Ether goes up $20+
I don't know what basis you use for your valuation - and you could be right or could be wrong - but it might be time to start basing valuations of Ether tokens on sober calculation rather than drunken hysteria.
For a start, you can do quite a lot in terms of open source code development for a billion dollars, including reproducing the Ethereum service paradigm probably several times over.
Secondly, what is it we’re investing in actually ?
Ethereum is not like Bitcoin whose tokens carry a monetary premium due to their “
bearer property". i.e. the bitcoin IS the asset. On the other hand, in a smart contract network, the assets are only recorded in the blockchain. They are not the actual tokens themselves. The tokens are simply a medium for charging transaction fees and for paying miners to secure the network. (See
Simon Dixon's commentary for more info).
Right now, what people are investing in looks like this.
But later it will start to look like this…..
What happens when people start shifting their capital from the token layer to the asset layer ? (For a preview, see the history of the NxT valuation once assets started appearing on that network). Or even shifting their assets off your blockchain to another, less expensive one ?
Thirdly, what happens when the price of GAS gets too expensive and the network becomes uncompetitive ? One of 2 things:
a) other smart contract networks start appearing which are more competitively priced and featured (since they have the advantage of watching the mistakes in the first one)
b) the Ethereum network simply issues more GAS tokens to lower the transaction fee to a competitive level (that's my assumption but better confirm this as I'm not quite sure about how this mechanism works)
So I don’t really agree with you that it will reach $20 per token because it’s probably a good 10 to 100 times past its book value already. Also, the capital it would take would be enormous from here and people WILL start to look at the genuine commercial case for investing in tokens rather than assets, at which point some will get a bit of a fright.
The power of FOMO is strong with this one, (full disclosure - I left some skin in the game for this reason) but people should be clear about what they’re investing in - other people’s hysteria, not an advanced technology with a book value that’s genuinely manifesting in the market. Be advised that such FOMO can disappear as fast as the froth on a cappucino and everyone’s waiting nervously for that moment, with fingers on mouses at the ready.
b.t.w. I’m not posting this to malign the product. I think it’s a promising and exciting technology. Also, Vitalik is a visionary guy who I like listening to and to his great credit has stayed away from hyping the token price with complete professionalism. But I think people buying at this price should be aware of what they’re purchasing and it might be irresponsible to be encouraging folks to do so any longer now.
Wherever the top is, some investors are about to loose a very large amount of money - or at least it looks like that to me when I watch the size of some of those trades going in at all-time-highs. It just depends on who's at the front of the queue at the wrong moment.