Read this one-by-one: 1. Money is not just a medium of exchange. 2. Money is a collectable, that CAN be exchanged. 3. Throughout human history, people collected all kinds of items. Some of those were often exchanged (usually for other items) - but not always. 4. Examples of collectables include, coins, silver, old stamps, gold, fur, antiques, rare animal bones, party hats in Runescape, and US dollars. 5. For something to hold "value", it needs to be considered "valuable" by other people. 6. A "valuable" item doesn't always have to be "useful". Ex: A mirror made in year 1550 isn't that much more useful than a mirror made today. Yet it's more "valuable". 7. Among many properties, the most important property of a "valuable" item is scarcity. 8. An item can be turned into "valuable" overnight if a lot of people suddenly think it's valuable. 9. "Money is a bubble that never bursts". If tulips were durable and scarce, they would have been worth a lot more by now. 10. Bitcoin is a scarce, durable, and transportable collectable that became valuable overnight. 11. It will continue to be valuable for as long as these properties hold true. - Ali Mir
it’s as valuable as $2 bill
The market values it 5000x that
Scarce supply make things valuable if there is constant demand. Lack of supply of something that has no demand doesn't make that thing valuable.
That’s right. But “money is a bubble that never bursts”. When a thing becomes “valuable” all of a sudden, it’s difficult to stop it - especially if it’s durable, transportable, and scarce. For items that are especially rare, the demand keeps going. That’s why a mirror produced in 1500 or a party hat in runescape will always be worth a lot.
The demand for diamonds is mostly artificially created by lots and lots of marketing over time. Seems like you are trying to do the same for Bitcoin, and if you succeed your premise would be correct!
Bitcoin causes climate change. It might be valuable but it's not worthy of respect.
XRP for the real win!
Why is Bitcoin so special and scarce? There are other 1000 coins which are similar. Nothing special about Bitcoin here. Also Bitcoin by itself has no immediate value. What do people get by storing private keys as collectible? None. No sentiments, no visual elements, no retro feelings, just keys
It’s scarce because the software only allows 23 million coins to be mined. 1. Bitcoin is special because of network effects. It’s the leader of cryptocurrencies. Far more people own bitcoin than any other cryptos. But that’s irrelevant. Whatever was said about Bitcoin could be said about other cryptos - but those cryptos would need to reach to a certain level of market adaption in order to be valuable. 2. The private key itself is just a key that allows the owner to access bitcoin. It’s like the key that allows you to drive your BMW. 3. A few useful properties of bitcoin (again something doesn’t have to be useful to be valuable) is durability (no one can destroy it), transportation (you can carry billions of dollars worth of bitcoin across borders just by memorizing the private key), decentralization (no single government controls the supply of bitcoin like they do with their currencies), and the unnecessary of trust (its all based on math and computer science - not people and ideas).
Durability is questionable. If you loose the keys, you loose the Bitcoin. There are lots of problems with Bitcoin like scalability issues. And the only reason people are buying them or because of greed. No intrinsic or emotional or prestige value.
Nobody questions that bitcoins are valuable now. People are worried that the value won't disappear overnight. Traditional money is backed by the state (which has a lot of tanks and is willing to back their money by force). Bitcoin doesn't
There are a lot of collectibles that aren’t backed my anything.
ITT: lots of people who have read a few headlines and work in tech therefore think they must automatically be experts in how bitcoin or blockchain or digital currencies work, when in fact they know only as much as the average joe
2024 Tax
Yesterday
2563
Biden’s new tax proposal is wild
Health & Wellness
Yesterday
5734
Why are women naked in gym?
Tech Industry
Yesterday
5159
Google doing more layoffs, restructuring including country moves
Layoffs
2d
39577
Google CFO confirms 'large-scale' layoffs (Apr 17)
Tech Industry
Yesterday
341
Chances of meta clearing E5 with screwing up one coding one round and acing all other
Same for Beanie Babies
Excellent example
If I wanted to trade beanie babies over the internet I'd probably have to give them up to some sort of third party, who will act on behalf of me when making any sort of transaction. However this third party is one out of a few people authorized to make transactions on some other network to transfer digital beanie baby value, and they definitely aren't being checked that they have the beanie babies they say they have.