Some of the so-called experts say it could go to 200k in the next few years...I hesitated for years and finally bought the dip. over time, it will go up despite the dips just like the stock market...it is a limited quantity asset just like gold so although it seems pretty worthless in a road warrior scenario, it is otherwise something that will eventually become scarce and the demand will drive it up.
You would be really surprised how resilient it is. In any SHTF scenario where the extinction of the human species wasn't all but guaranteed, BTC would be highly likely to survive and thrive. It's like a hydra with millions of heads.
I don't know much about the others...I wish i could afford to throw money around to all of them but I'm new to this so I am picking the proven original for now...can anyone convince me why you should have many cryptos? I know people do it but dogecoin began as a joke so I just don't know how something like that lasts...some market experts think a handful will emerge as the standards and all the rest will fade away eventually. I'd think sticking to the name recognition ones that have a track record may be a better choice but if someone can tell me putting a few hundred into dogecoin is worth it vs using it for bit coin then maybe I'll look into it. Educate me now that we've answered the Op question LOL.
There are lots of altcoins that claim to have advantages over BTC, but they're all missing the point, in my opinion. You don't need millions of nodes to expend lots of energy verifying your purchase of a pack of gum. Where trustlessness is needed is for large savings or reserves, and large transactions, and that's where BTC excels. It's proof of work system is extremely simple, which makes it the ultimate in terms of security. And while it's criticized for costing too much or using too much energy, paying 50 dollars is nothing if we're talking about moving thousands of dollars, and especially not when moving millions, which is what it's really designed for.
I think Ethereum also has quite a bit of utility, and may in fact replace traditional stocks with tokens through smart contracts. Although some of the tokens initially on Ethereum's blockchain are moving to Cardano, so I don't know where it's going.
I don't understand the technical side of it, but many people Ripple is going to have a lot of utility in terms of making the transition from fiat to crypto. Some people think they may even play a role in central bank digital currencies. Their CEO has rubbed a few shoulders with central bankers, and has been in private meetings with our own fed chairman. The current fedcoin prototype is being developed at MIT, but there's nothing saying they won't contract with Ripple to provide some service.
The altcoins might prove to be useful, but they're also getting into the nitty gritty of the technology, where few people really understand what's going on. It's pretty easy to understand BTC and make a use case for it, and maybe even ETH and Cardano, too, but then when you start getting into stuff like Ripple that's made to provide intermediary services to existing banking structures, that's when you get to the point that it takes a very high level of technical understanding to even begin to grasp what it is they're trying to do, much less whether they're providing a valuable service or not.