It's also working from the faith in a random startup company

Have you ever asked to see the gold that your money represents? Isn't it all faith at some point? There's a great story on Radiolab that I'm reminded of (that I'm sure I'll butcher now) where they talk about an old civilization that mines stone from an island off of their mainland to use as money. They carve the stone into these big heavy coins that can't be moved very easily. The weight is the thing that protects the currency's value. Well one day, the canoe carrying one of these carved stones from the island to the mainland tips and the stone falls to the ocean floor. The king says "It's ok, the coin is still there." And so they go on using a certificate that represents the coin at the bottom of the ocean.

But I digress. My understanding of cryptocurrencies is elementary at best. Once people start talking beyond blockchains and get into nonces, I start my usual precipitous fade into some daydream. For me, BTC is something I would buy for pure entertainment value alone. Getting some, I feel, enables me to keep my mind occupied in the goings on of a lot of speculation about a lot of interesting topics. I do think it has value as a working model against fiat systems. And the fact that the US is still using 70's code for ACH transfer is insane - maybe bitcoin could even help initiate that update. I also just think that Bitcoin has a marketable and growing culture surrounding it. Even the word bitcoin is cool. That's probably something you won't hear the tech blogs say, but I'm naive enough to be comfortable with saying it.

I mean hey, I'm not a day trader, nor do I have time to stay informed enough to play the market as a means of making money. Owning bitcoin wouldn't be an investment for me, it'd be more like paying for a good story. I have enough to worry about with standard stocks alone, watching my IRA tick up and down, in inverse proportion to my blood pressure. :)