> Ask yourself first, why did the value climb 16x?
Oh I can do that. I expect it to be 100x or more greater than what it is today. The reason why it is 16 as opposed to 8 or 32 is simply the speed of the uptake. It is going up in value because it is in the process of deflating the fixed-asset debt bubble. The only real question is, how big is that bubble.
> I would also spend some time understanding what "investing"
Investing is understanding what the value proposition is, and investing accordingly. You don't, and that's fine. Don't assume that other people have your understanding of the asset class in question though.
The question you should be asking is, why do you think it's important when other people invest in things that you don't understand.
> In your opinion, what is the intrinsic value of Bitcoin?
I use the 1:10000 rule (https://xkcd.com/1053/) for this argument. It is my opinion that the intrinsic value of bitcoin is far far greater than anyone really comprehends. People generally are too focused on people just buying and selling the asset, but not about the cryptographic proof, and incentive structure that perpetuates the network functioning. So when people like to ask what the intrinsic value of bitcoin is, I say :
You are thinking of the store of value property without the cryptographic property that secures it. You are talking about it as one would talk about valuable shells, and even shell sellers, and not the security that separates it from all forms of value exchange before it. To understand the intrinsic value of bitcoin it is good to use the analogy of an envelope. So i ask you : does an envelope have intrinsic value?
If I have a letter that I need to send securely, would I prefer to send it open, and ready to be read? Or would I prefer for it to be sent within the confines of an envelope? Now let's think... would I prefer to just leave an open envelope, or would I think it necessary to put some seal across it to ensure that it isn't opened, and read whilst en-route. Does a sealable envelope have more intrinsic value than an unsealable one? Hmm... but what if someone can counterfeit the seal? I need some method of ensuring that the message I want to get to that person isn't read, and preferably, isn't even identified as a message. That's when you need to get lawyers involved. Sounds expensive. There's obviously something intrinsically valuable about such a service, because many people pay oh-so-very-much money for it.
Now let's imagine we're not talking about letters, we're talking about money. Would you address a $100 note through the mail to your child for their birthday? You'd pay for a stamp at least. Would you encase it in an envelope that you paid for at the local post-shop? Hmm... bill in the envelope. Anyone will be able to see that it is money. Perhaps encase it in a card? What if it is $1000? $10,000? $10 million? Does the protection service of an envelope somehow decrease because the value of the contents of the package increases? It's the opposite, isn't it? Bitcoin is both the cryptographically sealed envelope, and the network to deliver it.
What say you? Is an envelope intrinsically valuable?
> It is my opinion that the intrinsic value of bitcoin is far far greater than anyone really comprehends
See? It's all speculative bullshit, where people who took a bet on bitcoin increasing price and expect to profit from this price increase are trolling other fools to keep pumping the bubble until they cash out.
Bitcoin is quite clearly a pump-and-dump scheme, and here we see some users cheering fools to keep on pumping the bubble with their cash.
The only intrinsic value that bitcoin has is it's use in money laundering deals, and only in short time scales. That's it. The rest is just speculative fraud.
I wrote this a few days ago to talk about the mania (Disclosure: I operate Crypto Lotus, a crypto hedge fund):
PSA: I generally can't give you advice about specific crypto investments as much as I want to for multiple reasons related to my job.
This is my one statement on the market: It is loud.
Crypto is moving very quickly and I regard it as the riskiest asset class that is available today. To invest in crypto is to accept that currency can be narrative driven and that juxtaposition requires accepting that currency can be simultaneously worth any amount and no amount. The things that favor crypto as an asset class are that there is lots of positive news, a reasonable long-term narrative, and some of the largest assets are deflationary in design. The things that are unfavorable to crypto are that the pricing is uncorrelated to observable reality, the regulatory risk, and the cryptographic risk.
Overall, it is a bizarre, whimsical space to be in right now, but it is also terrifying. Don't tread lightly, and please don't invest more than you can afford to lose.
Thar be Dragons.
______
For clarity, the reasonable long-term narrative is that bitcoin is easier to work with than existing banking infrastructure for some transactions. In particular, if you are a high net-worth individual negotiating with a nation state or a person of low means who conducts low-trust transactions, bitcoin serves you better than most other means of payment. For the vast majority of people who don't fit in those two categories, bitcoin isn't really useful.
This would certainly be the world's longest running pump and dump scheme. It could certainly be a bubble but I don't think it fits the definition of pump and dump.
Isn't the intrinsic value of Bitcoin the fact that it is decentralized and that no government or other entity has direct control over it?
Sure it's cryptographically secure, but what is the difference between that and a regular bank using encryption on their money transfer network?
I think the reason it's hard to say whether or not Bitcoin is worthwhile is that there has never been a decentralized currency at this scale before, and for all we know, unless it can serve some kind of purpose that a regular currency issued by a country cannot serve, it's not that useful. This is why Bitcoin is used a lot by people from countries were their own currency is struggling.
But with the central banks of many first-world countries printing money uncontrollably, some even bringing about negative interest rates, many fear the collapse of large economies in the near future. If that happens, Bitcoin will be a way to store your wealth and prevent all your money from becoming worthless pieces of paper.
Other ways of doing the same would be buying gold or some other form of valuable goods and storing it in your house or have someone else store it for you somewhere, but obviously the fact that Bitcoin is digital makes it a much easier to use and viable option.
But, we don't know if that will ever happen. Bitcoin itself also has so many problems. It's also arbitrary as to which digital currency to use since there are so many to invest in, some more popular than others, some have evolved to fix problems with previous versions, so it's really hard to say if all of this will amount to something useful.
Yea but what makes the bitcoin delivery network any better than a bank's delivery network, unless you take into account of the fact that it's decentralized? Banks deliver money all the time.
There is intrinsic value in bitcoin. The two more important questions are:-
1. Can that value be measured?
2. Do the people buying bitcoin know the reasons behind why they are buying it? I think not.
I know so many of my friends who own bitcoin and they have no idea what the hell this thing is. They just bought it as it’s growing up in value. These are the people who would sell it when the value goes down and we all know how that ends...
> Fixed assets, goods and services, etc., are stable relative to fiat, at least USD.
Of course it can. Its price. Bitcoin is money. Its price is the only measure of value.
What I'm saying is that it doesn't matter what people want it for. It's money. It enables things. It is just better money, because it can't be seized, payments can be made to anyone, it can be transported anywhere easily and redeemed anywhere easily, and most of all, it can't be debased. Any of these reasons is enough to want to use it, and people might not know all of the details, but they certainly understand the effects on their wealth.
There is no "intrinsic value", but the subjective value of Bitcoin is that could be a better money than any money that has existed so far.
Strictly speaking "intrinsic value" does not exist, there is only subjective value placed on things based on their properties and usefulness to humans.
Gold only has "intrinsic value" because we value that we can use it to build machines or shiny jewellery. But that is only valuable because we value machines and shiny things. Even air is only valuable to us because we require it to survive, but anaerobic lifeforms don't care. So the value is not intrinsic, but only subjectively "intrinsic" because most people value staying alive.
So the subjective value of Bitcoin is based on its its properties. Humans happen to use money, and the properties of Bitcoin could theoretically make it "better" money than any money that has existed so far.
Anything can be money, but is judged on how "good" a money it is depending on several criteria such as:
1.) Scarcity: Only a select group can create money.
2.) Durability: Should be resistant to aging and natural elements.
3.) Divisibility: Can be divided into smaller sub-units.
4.) Transportability: Easy to transport and transact in.
5.) Recognizability: Should be difficult to counterfeit.
6.) Fungibility: Any $1 bill is equal to any other $1 bill.
Bitcoin could theoretically be better in every category.
However, it is still suffering from lots of problems.
Currently "portability" is often suffering due to network congestion and high fees, which also impacts "divisibility" as it becomes impractical to move small amounts.
However, there's still a good chance that either Bitcoin Core or Bitcoin Cash or any other of the current cryptocurrencies will find a way to scale and retain good portability and divisibility.
tl;dr Bitcoin has no "intrinsic value", nothing does, but the subjective value is that it could be better money than any other.
Oh I can do that. I expect it to be 100x or more greater than what it is today. The reason why it is 16 as opposed to 8 or 32 is simply the speed of the uptake. It is going up in value because it is in the process of deflating the fixed-asset debt bubble. The only real question is, how big is that bubble.
> I would also spend some time understanding what "investing"
Investing is understanding what the value proposition is, and investing accordingly. You don't, and that's fine. Don't assume that other people have your understanding of the asset class in question though.
The question you should be asking is, why do you think it's important when other people invest in things that you don't understand.