Why CRYPTOCURRENCY HAS VALUE
Many people compare the increase in the price of Bitcoin and other AltCoins to the tulip bubble. Here's why they're wrong:
Crypto increases efficiency and reduces cost by eliminating the "middleman."
Crypto, for the most part, is difficult to track. Privacy capabilities can vary, of course. A coin like Monero has more privacy capabilities then say Bitcoin. But still, for the majority of coins, increased privacy capabilities vs bank transfers/WesternUnion/MoneyGrams is very valuable.
It's unstoppable. This is especially true as more decentralized exchanges come out. Even if the government were to "ban" Crypto, how would that be enforced? The worst they could do is harass the exchanges and such. They could do nothing to stop person A from transferring funds to person B. I'm not implying the government can't hurt Crypto (it can!) but it cannot completely stop this revolution.
To conclude, Cryptocurrency is nothing like tulips because IT HAS INHERENT VALUE.
Did tulips require a middleman?
Were they easy to track?
Was the growing of tulips centralised?
The concept has value, but that doesn't change the fact that there is nothing backing it. It may not be like tulips, but it is solely dependent on market forces to set a price, and anything like that can go down.