> The problems with the technologies is that the "robust database" guarantee is often highly dependent on the currency mechanisms. They unfortunately go hand-in-hand.
I agree that economic incentives are important for robustness, but I don't agree with this use of the word "currency".
The tokens have value in that they can be used to write to the ledger.
That is the consumer aspect of the token, you can give it up in exchange for the ability to edit the ledger.
The producer aspect of the token is that if you help participate in running the network, you can earn tokens, to edit the ledger yourself later.
The tokens have to store value (ledger write access), and there needs to be a market for them, because the producers can't use them all themselves.
Just because something can store value, in this case the specific ability to write to the ledger, doesn't mean that thing is suitable as a currency.
Copper ingots let you make cat6 cables, the are objectively valuable, but we don't use them as a currency.
And as the world found out over the last decade, the distance from store of value to functioning currency is significant.
The store of value is sufficient to run the networks though, you don't need the tokens to work as a currency, and I think that has been empirically proven.
The Ethereum mainnet is unlikely to disappear for a very long time, but Ethereum is also unlikely to ever be widely used as a currency.
The takeaway is that you should have as much of these tokens as you are likely to need for writing to the ledger.
If you hold them in Coinbase and never use them to operate the ledger then you are participating in the speculative overvaluing of the tokens.