I see you beating yourself up everyday over missing out on bitcoin, crying in the bathroom or whenever you're alone and I start to feel sorry for you.... then I change my mind and start laughing at you BWAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Well, if you are stranded on an Island "alone", paper based money (USD, GBP, etc...) will be of no use as well. However, if you are on an Island with a community, everyone can still reach a consensus of what is a "Store of Value" and a "Medium of Exchange" to use instead of bartering goods & services together. The intrinsic value comes from the consensus (In Bitcoin case, the network effect). Consensus is actually a network effect. In todays' world, the consensus for Gold as a "Store of Value" is at the Central Banks & governments level. Just as there is a global consensus that the USD is the world reserve currency. If you know history, you would know that this consensus for Gold & Silver never changed for thousands of years, however, the consensus for the world reserve currency changed many times.
Ok. So it's value is that it can be used as a currency. But we already have a currency (USD) so we don't need another. People always talk about the "gold standard" as if it's necessary to have paper money "backed by gold," but this is false. Current currencies work just fine without being backed by anything because of the reasons you just stated. Global economies became too large for gold to serve as a reserve and it's not necessary anyway.
Paper (fiat) money = no intrinsic value other than its use as a currency Gold = no intrinsic value other than its use as a currency Crypto= no intrinsic value other than its use as a currency There is no advantage to crypto over fiat. Most fiat already is digital anyway. The only actual advantage is to criminals wishing to stay anonymous. Hence why it only became popular alongside the dark web.
There is no maximum for paper. There is also no maximum for Bitcoin because you can continue to divide it into smaller increments. Similar to how a stock can split. So while you could say it's 21 million (minus the amount that is lost permanently), this doesn't tell the whole story because you can always add another decimal place.
That's like Yogi Berra saying "You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six". Know what I mean, Vern?
This analogy is not accurate. The reason is... If Bitcoin were to be accepted as the global currency, then the amount of value it would have to represent and be used as currency for would increase substantially from what it is now. So it would be like if Yogi's pizza increased in size by 1000x.
I disagree. There must be some standard, otherwise, we get the current social problems of wealth gap, inequality & highly skewed wealth distribution. If you put the printing press with someone, eventually they will do what's for their benefit (especially when a conflict of interest arises), not for the overall good of the whole society, it has been proven time after time throughout history. The fact is that since the gold standard was taken off, fiat currencies consistently kept losing their purchasing power. This is a characteristic which is not expected from a currency (Supposedly treated as a store of value). Everyone knows how it hurts when you miss a good train. You eventually try to convince yourself that it's a bad train. I have been there myself calling it useless and of no intrinsic value. But then I objectively re-thought my opinion and concluded the facts. It's only a bad train because I missed it, not because it's really a bad train.