A Case for Bitcoin maximalism
Hard money is hard to create. Gold is hard to create due to its relative scarcity in the earths crust and the high cost of time and energy required to extract it. The price of gold trends towards the cost of production. When the price is higher than the cost of production, more mining will be initiated. When the price is below, the marginally expensive mines will be taken offline.
Gold is hard money because it costs about the same to produce as is the market price of the finished product. The value that is transferred when you give someone gold is the time and effort that has gone into extracting it. Fiat paper money costs less than one cent per note to create, digital money costs even less.
The perceived value of fiat money comes from the fact that we are forced to pay our taxes in that money under the threat of going to prison. The monopoly producer of that money is able to maintain a higher marketable price for the money giving them a profit margin on every new unit issued. Making fiat money is far more profitable than making consumable good and services.
Making Bitcoin is hard, just like making gold. In the long run the price of production equates to about the same as the marketable value. There are some variations over time and more efficient miners will make a margin and invest in expansion while less efficient miners will make a loss and either change their production method or close up shop. This is why bitcoin mining is an incentive system to seek out and develop the lowest cost from of energy in locations where they would otherwise be wasted.
Alternative crypto currencies are a form of fiat money. They are created by the founders and their cost of production is far less than the marketable value of the token. Many of these new currencies have some form of utility in terms of being faster and cheaper to transact than Bitcoin, but they would never get off the ground at all without investing some money in marketing. The extent to which their price can rise above the marginal cost of producing the tokens is determined by the amount of marketing spend that takes place. The marketing budget is funded by the margin that is achieved on the sale of the tokens. Buyers of the tokens are paying for their own seduction.
Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that could launch without a marketing budget, because it was the first. Any other coin that launched now and in the future, without marketing, would never be able to draw people's attention away from other coins that do have marketing behind them.
With no single issuing entity, there is no incentive for a Bitcoin miner to spend money on marketing. As an open and permissionless network, Bitcoin enables anyone to join and compete away any temporary profit margins that might exist a result of marketing spend by any one miner.
The above reasoning gives a case as to why #Bitcoin is the only #hardmoney that can ever exist in the #cryptocurrency space.