What exactly am I investing in when I buy a coin.

[MonkeyBrain]

So I've been buying ETH, BITCOIN, NEO and a bunch of other coins for an investment in case the coins go up in price.  My question is this.  What exactly am I buying?  In many of these coins I'm not actually buying a currency, and I'm also not investing in a company where I get shares.  In fact, if I move my ETH around, I burn gas which burns my ETH.  If I continuously do this I could end with the 0 ETH. So is there any true value in these coins other than making money when you buy low and sell high?

[karasuri]

You buy money. Money is a thing that has a certain value. This is not an investment, it is buying, selling and exchanging.

[Yudhisthir]

When you buy Eth or BTC, you are investing in its potential value. Consider them like gold.
Holding NEO brings you free gas, which too increases in value.
Similar are the things for tokens, afterall it's all your trust about what value the coin might get in future.

[macchiato]

There is money in investing into these coins. It may not be evident by now but if only you purchased earlier, like last year, you will get profit out of it. Investing is buying and holding it for a long time expecting an increase after waiting. Trading is a different thing and I think that is what you are trying to say, the "buy low, sell high". Trading requires only a short amount of time and you profit is not as evident as long term investments.

[skan]

well most of them are currencies, and you can use them for certain transactions. your purpose though is investment right now and if everyone does only that, then i don't think that they will accumulate in value because if no one is using dollars to trade, then their value will also drop because it is not following the value of money rules. most new cryptos are targeting a certain field per say but in the future, many vendors will accept them as payments.

in short, you buy a new form of currency with your fiat money, almost like dollar > pound except that the pound may not be accepted in many places.

[jlanzago]

Yes, they have a utility and the demand should come because of that. For example a lot of projects are based in the Ethereum blockchain so in order to buy those tokens you do need ETH, plus they themselves need it to run on that blockchain. NEO is also similar, some projects are being built on top of it. Bitcoin is not like that, it is a currency (it would be wise if you actually read the whitepaper, it is very interesting and you can find it in their website).

[Stayn]

You are investing in the project and its promise for the future. Most of them will publicly claim the tokens are not securities, but most of them are.
You said BTC, ETH, NEO. You are investing in the vision Blockstream, Buterin and NEO team has for the future of their projects. If they fail in executing, your investment will fail as well.

[St4yInTh3D4rk]

So I've been buying ETH, BITCOIN, NEO and a bunch of other coins for an investment in case the coins go up in price.  My question is this.  What exactly am I buying?  In many of these coins I'm not actually buying a currency, and I'm also not investing in a company where I get shares.  In fact, if I move my ETH around, I burn gas which burns my ETH.  If I continuously do this I could end with the 0 ETH. So is there any true value in these coins other than making money when you buy low and sell high?

Why are you confused this much?Crypto currency means real currency but they have no physical appearance.The gas or transaction fee is the fee which is required to pay for the miners which are working for us to confirm our transaction.But the fee is very less and it will decrease more in the future by the development of these coins.So you are buying a real currency with advanced technology.

[01BTC]

So I've been buying ETH, BITCOIN, NEO and a bunch of other coins for an investment in case the coins go up in price.  My question is this.  What exactly am I buying?  In many of these coins I'm not actually buying a currency, and I'm also not investing in a company where I get shares.  In fact, if I move my ETH around, I burn gas which burns my ETH.  If I continuously do this I could end with the 0 ETH. So is there any true value in these coins other than making money when you buy low and sell high?

It's money buddy, as it is said money makes the world go round...  Why not making a portfolio a little more diverse , like 50% (here the big ones either btc or eth) and the rest arround 10% each.

[rachman mahesa]

There is money in investing into these coins. It may not be evident by now but if only you purchased earlier, like last year, you will get profit out of it. Investing is buying and holding it for a long time expecting an increase after waiting. Trading is a different thing and I think that is what you are trying to say, the "buy low, sell high". Trading requires only a short amount of time and you profit is not as evident as long term investments.

You are right, very different between investment with trading. Trading can be interpreted as if you said "buying low, selling high" is very different from investment let alone long-term investment with more profit if you wait for it. Some people are different in their field, There are those who prefer to invest there also who like to trade.

[mezzaluna]

You are currently investing on different alternate coins and that is it. You are investing in the platforms that you have placed your cryptocurrency. You can gain money by investing and splitting them into different coins is a good idea. There might be risk of not getting a profit in one token but what if the other tokens price gets pumped and this will give you higher profit. You can also take time to learn on what are the benefits it might give while you are investing into these different alternate coins.

[Svelto]

You are investing in crypto currencies. You can take it as currency in the virtual world  which has a price determined by buyers and sellers.

[blok]

Buying a coin is not an investment, because a coin is not supposed to go up in value (it wouldn't be any good as a currency if it did!).

You buy a coin in order to use its functions — Bitcoin to securely send money, Ethereum to use smart contracts, Filecoin to buy storage, etc. If you don't need the functions that using a coin provides, you don't need it.

Of course, you can try to second-guess the market and speculate on coins — 2017 shown ~10x returns (or more) on most of the coins — but you're not guaranteed any profits this way.

[cryptosifu]

When you invest in a cryptocurrency, you are investing in the project's team and hoping that they deliver on their promises.  You are basically betting on the teams developments and marketing strategies to succeed and bring you profits. 

[btc-facebook]

It's just same case if I'm invest on dollar and if I transfer dollar , they will charge me a fee everytime I transfer.
Just make sure that you realize what have you done.

Once you invest some coin, just hold it or just move to the safest place and wait until it reach higher value.
That's simple thing that you want to achieve is PROFIT !