So much interesting information!
I quote:
"I have quite a number of friends or acquaintances I think are extremely smart and talented, across a number of different fields. I have no doubt a number of them will be extremely successful. I would love to have the ability to invest in these people.
If everyone had their own personal token, I could actually do this. I could provide some capital to them now, or accept their token as a payment for something, even something as small as a lunch or a drink. In the future, when they are rich and famous (only slight sarcasm here), I could sell those tokens for a profit."
from the John Palmer article "What if Everyone Had Their Own Cryptocurrency?"
https://medium.com/@johncpalmer/what-if-everyone-had-their-own-cryptocurrency-551ea2f9aa1dFrom this article we can see that the "personal cryptocurrencies" are cryptocurrencies par excellence - cryptocurrencies in its most clear, clean form as the shares of reputation.
Now the answer for the question
"Where the value of a cryptocurrency come from?" is much more clear to everyone (and not only for "personal cryptos" but for others as well).
Cryptos value does not come from a technical protocol. To say that the value of a cryptocurrency comes from its technology is just as absurd as to say that the value of a stock comes from the paper it is printed at.
The value of a cryptocurrency comes directly from its reputation (image, fame, public acceptance). Of course, the reputation of traditional cryptos like Bitcoin is partly influenced by the possibilities to use it in the real life situations which in turn is partly due to its technology. But this is far from one to one clear relationship: the technology is only one among many factors that affect the cryptos reputation - the true source of its value.
You can have technologically the best crypto in the whole world but its value is zero until it is well marketed.
"Cryptos have no value because everyone can create its own crypto." Yes, crypto as such has no value. Only crypto with reputation has value.
The cryptocurrencies and stocks are similar because both offer the chance it buy shares (parts) into something you have not created. And both cryptos and stock can be created by everyone.
Interesting idea tbh, but I think its a bit oversimplified. Reputation definitely plays a big role, no doubt about that. If nobody trusts or uses a coin, its basically dead no matter how good the tech is, we've seen that many times already.
But saying value only comes from reputation is not fully right either. With something like bitcoin, the tech (security, decentralization, network effect) is actually part of why people trust it in the first place. Its not just image, theres real utility behind it.
Personal tokens sound cool in theory, like investing in people, but also risky. Reputation can change fast, and theres no real fundamentals to fall back on if hype dies.
So yeah, reputation matters a lot, but without some real use or strong network, it uisually doesnt last long, both sides kind of depend on each other.
