Kinda funny when people argue about any crypto's fundamental value, because as I said earlier it is both impossible to figure it out and hugely irrelevant. Pretty much the same way as a meme stock's value. You HOPE, that the current and the fundamental price eventually going to converge, but in the main time your broker/crypto account can die a painful death. Fundamentally and technologically both BCH and BSV are better than BTC, yet their prices are 4-700 times lower than BTC's. But of course nobody cares about technology in Cryptoland. Let's say BTC (and BTC only) is banned by the top 10 biggest countries. All crypto users could easily switch to BCH/BSV like nothing happened. So obviously, uniqueness doesn't give value to BTC, because it is not unique at all. Its value also can not come from the robustness of the system, because 5+ years ago its value was 19K and only a few months ago it was 17K, although the system is at least 2-3 times more robust now.(too lazy to look it up) Edit: Total hash rate went from 13M TH/s to over 300MM, while the price actually decreased. The point here is that the system's robustness and its price have been diverging since 2022 November.
I guess what I'm saying is that I do not see any fundamental value in the underlying cryptocurrency. Its reported convenience and ease of use may be useful, but its underlying value as an medium of exchange apparently floats on whimsical air. If that is indeed the case, then I don't see how it doesn't (eventually) end badly.
Yup, the skeptics like to attack a piece of the Bitcoin system. It's their way of justifying they are mentally and emotional weaklings incapable of investing in a very volatile speculative asset One of the books I read that helped me on this thought process is "Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos" Bill Miller was involved in the Santa Fe Institute study and I saw a youtube video he explained it helped him to understand Bitcoin and invest a large sum of money in 2013 Network Effect is a big part of the moat, which is why Bitcoin cannot get beat by LTC, BCH, and others Friendster got beat by MySpace which got beat by Facebook, then Google spent billions upon billions and could not beat Facebook Facebook was smart, acquiring the ones that could beat it, Instagram, WhatsApp, if it could it would acquire TikTok. Network Effect is what Facebook is afraid of Google should have bought those Facebook threats but thought they had the network effect from their ecosystem to unseat Facebook, they thought wrong And network effect is one of the biggest things with Bitcoin as measured by Metcalfe's law and Lightning is being adopted in many places in the world as a true payment system, Isle of Man, Lugano, Brazil, El Salvador, Boracay, Dubai, Bitcoin is on an S-curve adoption which is why 1 btc will be worth $1M within 10 years as Cathie Wood explains and 1 btc will be worth over $10M within 20 years These ET skeptics will be crying. Hope they live to see it Bitcoin's value is greater than the sum of all its parts = fraud-free, 24/7 operations, never goes down Bitcoin monetary network (payment systems on MoE transactions, value transfer without intermediaries across borders) that has settled over $8 T last year + bitcoin the scarce digital asset secured by the most powerful computing network that ever existed and still increasing in power + the network of all the global users/companies willing to trade their hard earned savings for it
It's the same dynamic that determines the price of a stock or pretty much anything else: supply and demand. If there's less BTC than there is demand for it, then the price goes up. If there's more BTC floating around than buyers for it, then the price goes down. I'm not exactly sure why you're confused about that. And in regards to it not being "backed" by anything, it's backed by the exact same thing gold is backed by: proof of work. Gold doesn't just materialize out of nowhere. It takes a lot of hard work to search and extract even a small amount and bring it to market. That is why it costs as much as it does to produce. If anybody could just walk in their backyard and grab infinite amounts from the gold tree, then it wouldn't be worth much at all. When the most powerful computer network on earth is working night and day to do the mathematical mining work required to create a single bitcoin, the result is something rare and special that has substantially more value than something else with much less work involved. But it's not just scarcity that gives something value. It's demand for the scarce item as well. And conversely, just because a lot of people want something doesn't mean the price goes through the roof either. There are millions of people that like romaine lettuce for their caesar salads, but that doesn't mean a bag of lettuce is priced the same as a Bitcoin because the supply of lettuce is huge to meet the current demand for it. But since Bitcoin has huge demand and low availability, the price reflects that.
Ya know I read this post, and I didn't take it lightly. And I know I joke around a lot here, but I am being totally serious. The debate can go on and on... is Bitcoin worth anything, or is it ether? I really pondered it.. and the light came on. The answer to the question is, it doesn't matter. Because Baron, JohnnyArb, and several others here are not alone in their feelings. For lack of a better word, they are HODL'rs. True believers. And I suspect they are not alone. I mean... obviously they're not. This world is a very fragile place, the bottom could be pulled out from under us in a minute. For real. It really could. If you think otherwise, you're stupid. These Hodl'r types... like Baron and John, they are not selling. It's almost like a cult, and I don't mean that in a bad way. In fact I mean it in a good way. None of us know what tomorrow will bring, but the greater the uncertainty, the greater the value in the scarcity of an asset that many many wealthy, smart people will never sell. Wanna join the club? Pay the price. I'm gonna make a very bold call here... sometimes I just feel things. And in 1000% full disclosure, I have never owned so much as 1 BTC... but I have a very strong feeling, and these don't come around often.... that Bitcoin is heading north. It's funny, because the last time I looked, it was 24K. I don't follow it. But before I wrote this, I looked and it was 26K. Am I calling a bottom? No, not necessarily, but I am saying that bitcoin will become the province of the elite, and as such... it is only heading north. Ya'll can think I'm crazy.... but I'm right. ~vz ___________________ edit: 27K... I just looked again. Probably the worst time to call it out as such. Honestly... I had no idea. I really didn't. Whatever.
Gold is a fairly rare commodity with industrial and other applications. Backed by proof of work? I'd think the hard work goes in because it has historically had perceived value. If it didn't have value, then it would not be worth putting in the hard work to retrieve it. So "hard work" does not quite explain it. I haven't given it much thought, but do you think it is possible you have it backwards? I think your attempt to draw a parallel between crypto and a useful commodity is somewhat strained. I genuinely don't see how BTC is different than tulips in the 17th century during which time some people did indeed get rich. Especially when you consider that crypto cannot exist without blockchain, but blockchain can exist without crypto. Wasn't BTC's scarcity artificially established at 21 million? Doesn't arbitrary and artificial rarity alone give you pause? As for the huge demand for it, is not that huge demand fueled by a desire to get rich fairly quickly and easily from it? Not unlike 17th century tulips? Perhaps I'm missing something here because I am not tech savvy. But I don't think so.
Tulip mania only lasted three years, so if BTC was anything like that, it would have rocketed upwards, and then collapsed and stayed that way about 9 years ago. Well considering that Bitcoin has gone from zero to $27,000 over the span of 13 years, then yeah, I'd definitely say you're missing something. I mean, how high does it have to go for you to say, "This has proven to be the opportunity of a lifetime and I've been dead wrong about it the entire time."
Okay, so now we're down to time frames. Anyway, I know I'm out of my depth and all I see are sharks offering me free sandwiches.