"I find it all very irrational, but if I can make profit from it I'm game."
Lol, I think that rings true for alot of markets, but definitely for bitcoin/altcoins. I think the vast majority of us were/are just holding for the next bubble. We are all playing the greater fools game, buying expecting to sell it to a greater fool for more in the future.
I think long term success for alot of people means bitcoin/their altcoin continually rising. The thing that people miss is that bubbles are caused by irrational thinking, they aren't supposed to make sense. They build because of emotions, such as greed, so powerful that it overpowers rational thought. Its what makes people overreact and mortgage/sell their house and buy bitcoin after it's already risen nearly 10x, something we've now seen repeat during both the current & last bitcoin bubbles.. Irrational exhuberence. (I really hope that dude from 2013 kept that shit, he's sitting pretty today if so, its hard for a non-trader to hold with conviction though, especially after it loses 50% and you start thinking "what if it never comes back")
I 100% don't see a reason for bitcoin to have a 50b market cap unless there's so many people using it that the system needs to hold that much value/liquidity in order to transact properly.
Long term success for me would be being able to pay every bill I have and make purchases from nearly every store using bitcoin directly. We can get into the argument of whether bitcoin will be surpassed by an altcoin in the future, but it's the same philosphy. The first one to it, imo, is successful.
I fully, 100%, agree with you. What you are talking about, is Fisher's formula for the value of a currency.
Crypto is abstract speculative greater fool betting tokens, not money. Bitcoin included. Because of their emission curves.