A simple proof that Bitcoin has zero value

[fxsurfer]

Let's say that we have a database that represents information about ownership of things and has 3 columns (A, B and C) with the following data types: Owner name, Thing quantity and Thing name.

_____A______     ____B____    ______C______
____Alice____      ____2____    ____iPhones___
____ Bob ____     ___20____    ____US Dollars_
___ Steve____     ___15____    ___IBM Shares_
____Peter____     ____2____    ____Bitcoins___
 
Just as every database, this database is an organized collection of data which provides information about some aspect of reality, in this case the ownership of things. Alice, Bob, Steve and Peter own a specific quantity of iPhones, US Dollars, IBM shares and Bitcoins.

Now, in the first three cases of ownership, column B quantifies some actual thing which resides outside the database. Alice owns actual electronic devices. Bob owns an actual share in the total claims secured by collateral that originated from the total borrowers liabilities in the U.S monetary system. And Steve owns an actual share in the total IBM capital.

But, if we now ask what actual thing outside the database is owned by Peter, we face an inherent contradiction. Namely, there is nothing outside the database since bitcoin is just the name of a number connected to the address, in this case to Peter. In other words, column B and column C are basically the same thing - a number. It is just that column C uses alphabetic symbols, while column B uses numerical symbols. So, Peter owns 2 numbers and Peter owns number 2. But how can someone own a number? The first three rows in our database clearly show that numbers are just means to quantify things, they are not things that are owned. As such, these numbers are valueless on their own, and they can be created out of thin air. On the other hand, electronic devices, borrowers liabilities/collaterals, and company's capital, obviously cannot be created out of thin air. And that is why things (iPhones, US Dollars and IBM Shares) are what have value, not the numbers. Numbers are just symbols that represent/quantify these things and they cannot have value in principle. For e.g. in the case of dollars, it is not the number "20" in the database what Bob owns. He owns a share in the total claims that originated from the total borrowers liabilities. If the total liabilities(debt) in the U.S monetary system is X, Bob owns 20/X of share in claims derived from these liabilities.

But, in the case of bitcoin, Peter literally owns number "2" in the database, since bitcoin(entry in column C) is just a fancy name for the number in column B and it represents nothing outside the database itself. So, since bitcoin is a number while numbers are only representations of values that exist outside the database, not only that bitcoin has zero value but the term "bitcoin's value" is an oxymoron.

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[franky1]

what you dont understand is this

1. if the database was secured using a signature, (PoS) then the costs to secure it is zero. but bitcoin actually has a real hard cost to secure the database (PoW) which is commonly called mining.
in 2009. mining could be done by one persons PC and he would broadcast the database out to other and the costs were negligable.

2. over time the security increased, it became difficult to secure it with single machines. people started to calculate that the electric required to secure it was as such
if electric was 5cents an hour. and 6 blocks were created in that hour. and a block contained 50coins in 2009
then a cost per coin was $0.000016666666666667
then it started requiring more power. and thus when 10 people were using their electric only one got to secure it meaning for every 10th block a person got rewarded. thus the cost rose 0.00016666666666667
then it started requiring more power. and thus when 100 people were using their electric only one got to secure it meaning for every 100th block a person got rewarded. thus the cost rose 0.0016666666666667
then people started using GPU's and the costs rose. they started pooling their workload together and sharing the reward and the costs increased.

by 2011 the amount of electric and time put into securing bitcoin got to $1.
by 2012 the amount of electric and time and equipment needed made it cost $6

the the reward halved so that doubled the costs because there was then half the reward. so 2012 had a $12 cost
more people started to join pools and the security difficulty increased. so costs to secure it went up

by 2013 ASICS became a thing and vastly increased the security and difficulty. to a tune of $100
by 2016 the cost went up to $300
by 2017 the costs went upto $900
by 2018 costs went up above $5000

yea the costs dont match the price.. but thats speculation. thats random drama above the underlying value.
it like housing.
it cost $80k to build a house but the builders sell it for a bit more to profit so houses price in at over $100k. and then speculators add on more.

housing has real costs and so housing is not free. and yes when the PRICE hyper inflates above VALUE/COST
that excess is a bubble because the price is "inflated" like a bubble inflates.
the housing market had a 'housing bubble' not because housing is fake but the price was inflated way above value

so yes with bitcoin although we did see a $1200btc in 2013 although the value was ~$100. did not mean btc was worth zero.. its VALUE was $100 and its PRICE was an inflated bubble of $1200

so yes although we did see a $20k btc PRICE in 2017 although the value was ~$2k. did not mean btc was worth zero.. its value was $2k and its price was an inflated bubble of $20k

and now in 2018. by looking at the cost of mining. there is not much of a inflated layer(speculative layer) above value. bitcoins VALUE is actually around the $6k costs and so compared to the very thin % of speculation. is deemed good value as the price and value are close to each other.

bitcoins have a cost
housing has a cost
tulips has a cost
but the price fluctuates above cost.
you can still buy tulips even now.. astonishing right? you would think tulips are fake or not worth anything. but they are worth something.
you can still buy houses even now.. astonishing right? would think houses are not worth anything. but they are.
you can still buy bitcoins even now.. astonishing right? you would think bitcoins are fake/worthless but they they are worth something.

[funchiestz]

You gave us a very good example. But there is one point that is overlooked. What determines the value of iPhone, Dollars, or IBM share? You have to think about it. There is an issue in economics. Demand and supply! The value in the market is where these two meet. So, you can handle the value of Bitcoin in this way. For example, I will not sell my Bitcoin without $ 50,000. If everyone thinks so, the price rises until the buyer offers $ 50,000.

I give you a different lookout. Whatsapp doesn't produce anything and when you look at it, there's nothing material about it. But they are making huge profit year by year. After Facebook purchased, their profit getting smaller but there are so many example like Whatsapp.

[franky1]

You gave us a very good example. But there is one point that is overlooked. What determines the value of iPhone, Dollars, or IBM share? You have to think about it. There is an issue in economics. Demand and supply! The value in the market is where these two meet. So, you can handle the value of Bitcoin in this way. For example, I will not sell my Bitcoin without $ 50,000. If everyone thinks so, the price rises until the buyer offers $ 50,000.

its actually deeper than supply and demand.
when you take in the cost of acquiring bitcoin. and then thats the underlying value no one would be willing to sell below because they wouldnt ever dream of selling for less then they acquird if for.

its then where people speculate a profitable PRICE above bottomline costs which they would sell for. and thats the speculative PRICE above value.
read my post above to explain that part known as 'value' (bottomline acquisition cost)

[fxsurfer]

You gave us a very good example. But there is one point that is overlooked. What determines the value of iPhone, Dollars, or IBM share? You have to think about it. There is an issue in economics. Demand and supply! The value in the market is where these two meet. So, you can handle the value of Bitcoin in this way. For example, I will not sell my Bitcoin without $ 50,000. If everyone thinks so, the price rises until the buyer offers $ 50,000.

I give you a different lookout. Whatsapp doesn't produce anything and when you look at it, there's nothing material about it. But they are making huge profit year by year. After Facebook purchased, their profit getting smaller but there are so many example like Whatsapp.

But when we talk about the demand and supply of iPhones, Dollars, and IBM shares, we are talking about things of value which exist outside the place(database) where the information about these things exists. There is no demand for number 5 in a database, where this database represents the number of iPhones in a warehouse for e.g. The demand is for things(iPhones) which are actual devices, and which exist outside the database. So, the demand is for an actual thing, while number in a database is just a symbol that quantifies that thing. The same is true for Dollars or IBM shares.

Bitcoin on the other hand, is not an actual thing outside the database. It is just an entry in a database that points to another entry in the same database. One entry is a number written in numerical symbols — 2 for e.g., and another entry is the same number written in alphabetical symbols — bitcoin or BTC. And of course, there is no such thing as a demand for symbols in a database. What you have in the world of Bitcoin is not demand and supply, but the modification of an entry in the database when someone gives things (iPhones or Dollars) for free. On the other hand, when supply and demand meet in case of iPhones and Dollars, the modifications in store's or bank's databases are just numerical evidences that people exchanged actual things (iPhones for dollars and vice versa). And of course, these things exist outside the databases. So, there is no such thing as demand and supply in the world of bitcoin, but instead, all there is is giving your stuff for free and recording that fact into a database/public ledger/blockchain in the numerical form.

[dohh]

You gave us a very good example. But there is one point that is overlooked. What determines the value of iPhone, Dollars, or IBM share? You have to think about it. There is an issue in economics. Demand and supply! The value in the market is where these two meet. So, you can handle the value of Bitcoin in this way. For example, I will not sell my Bitcoin without $ 50,000. If everyone thinks so, the price rises until the buyer offers $ 50,000.

I give you a different lookout. Whatsapp doesn't produce anything and when you look at it, there's nothing material about it. But they are making huge profit year by year. After Facebook purchased, their profit getting smaller but there are so many example like Whatsapp.

But when we talk about the demand and supply of iPhones, Dollars, and IBM shares, we are talking about things of value which exist outside the place(database) where the information about these things exists. There is no demand for number 5 in a database, where this database represents the number of iPhones in a warehouse for e.g. The demand is for things(iPhones) which are actual devices, and which exist outside the database. So, the demand is for an actual thing, while number in a database is just a symbol that quantifies that thing. The same is true for Dollars or IBM shares.

Bitcoin on the other hand, is not an actual thing outside the database. It is just an entry in a database that points to another entry in the same database. One entry is a number written in numerical symbols — 2 for e.g., and another entry is the same number written in alphabetical symbols — bitcoin or BTC. And of course, there is no such thing as a demand for symbols in a database. What you have in the world of Bitcoin is not demand and supply, but the modification of an entry in the database when someone gives things (iPhones or Dollars) for free. On the other hand, when supply and demand meet in case of iPhones and Dollars, the modifications in store's or bank's databases are just numerical evidences that people exchanged actual things (iPhones for dollars and vice versa). And of course, these things exist outside the databases. So, there is no such thing as demand and supply in the world of bitcoin, but instead, all there is is giving your stuff for free and recording that fact into a database/public ledger/blockchain in the numerical form.

While, I say, BTC is a scam, no more, Your logic is not quite correct here.

"outside value" <-- this could be for example used energy and hardware costs. Lets assume for second, BTC is a viable product (which it is not) and accounting in this manner (decentralized blockchain) is needed. As mining is crucial operation for this product and BTCs can be added only via mining, we can say, that "outside value" is at least spent ressources on mining. Future shows of course, it was wasted, but at least by now, we need to accept, that "mining is needed and therefore has value".

[fxsurfer]

what you dont understand is this

1. if the database was secured using a signature, (PoS) then the costs to secure it is zero. but bitcoin actually has a real hard cost to secure the database (PoW) which is commonly called mining.
in 2009. mining could be done by one persons PC and he would broadcast the database out to other and the costs were negligable.

2. over time the security increased, it became difficult to secure it with single machines. people started to calculate that the electric required to secure it was as such
if electric was 5cents an hour. and 6 blocks were created in that hour. and a block contained 50coins in 2009
then a cost per coin was $0.000016666666666667
then it started requiring more power. and thus when 10 people were using their electric only one got to secure it meaning for every 10th block a person got rewarded. thus the cost rose 0.00016666666666667
then it started requiring more power. and thus when 100 people were using their electric only one got to secure it meaning for every 100th block a person got rewarded. thus the cost rose 0.0016666666666667
then people started using GPU's and the costs rose. they started pooling their workload together and sharing the reward and the costs increased.

by 2011 the amount of electric and time put into securing bitcoin got to $1.
by 2012 the amount of electric and time and equipment needed made it cost $6

the the reward halved so that doubled the costs because there was then half the reward. so 2012 had a $12 cost
more people started to join pools and the security difficulty increased. so costs to secure it went up

by 2013 ASICS became a thing and vastly increased the security and difficulty. to a tune of $100
by 2016 the cost went up to $300
by 2017 the costs went upto $900
by 2018 costs went up above $5000

yea the costs dont match the price.. but thats speculation. thats random drama above the underlying value.
it like housing.
it cost $80k to build a house but the builders sell it for a bit more to profit so houses price in at over $100k. and then speculators add on more.

housing has real costs and so housing is not free. and yes when the PRICE hyper inflates above VALUE/COST
that excess is a bubble because the price is "inflated" like a bubble inflates.
the housing market had a 'housing bubble' not because housing is fake but the price was inflated way above value

so yes with bitcoin although we did see a $1200btc in 2013 although the value was ~$100. did not mean btc was worth zero.. its VALUE was $100 and its PRICE was an inflated bubble of $1200

so yes although we did see a $20k btc PRICE in 2017 although the value was ~$2k. did not mean btc was worth zero.. its value was $2k and its price was an inflated bubble of $20k

and now in 2018. by looking at the cost of mining. there is not much of a inflated layer(speculative layer) above value. bitcoins VALUE is actually around the $6k costs and so compared to the very thin % of speculation. is deemed good value as the price and value are close to each other.

bitcoins have a cost
housing has a cost
tulips has a cost
but the price fluctuates above cost.
you can still buy tulips even now.. astonishing right? you would think tulips are fake or not worth anything. but they are worth something.
you can still buy houses even now.. astonishing right? would think houses are not worth anything. but they are.
you can still buy bitcoins even now.. astonishing right? you would think bitcoins are fake/worthless but they they are worth something.

I think you missed the point of my opening post, which is this: bitcoin has neither price nor value. Furthermore, terms 'the price of bitcoin' and 'the value of bitcoin' are oxymorons. Let's go back to our database to see why.

_____A______     ____B____    ______C______
____Alice____      ____2____    ____iPhones___
____ Bob ____     ___20____    ____US Dollars_
___ Steve____     ___15____    ___IBM Shares_


Now, can you say that entries in column B have prices? Of course not, this would be nonsensical, since they are quantities not prices. Things outside this database (named in column C) are what have prices. But, in the case of bitcoin, there are no things outside this database that are named in column C, and this column simply contains the name of the entry in column B - number 2 is bitcoin.

____Peter____     ____2____    ____Bitcoins___

So, when you say that bitcoin has price, what you are actually saying is that quantities (numbers) have prices, which is, as we just saw, nonsensical.

[fxsurfer]

You gave us a very good example. But there is one point that is overlooked. What determines the value of iPhone, Dollars, or IBM share? You have to think about it. There is an issue in economics. Demand and supply! The value in the market is where these two meet. So, you can handle the value of Bitcoin in this way. For example, I will not sell my Bitcoin without $ 50,000. If everyone thinks so, the price rises until the buyer offers $ 50,000.

I give you a different lookout. Whatsapp doesn't produce anything and when you look at it, there's nothing material about it. But they are making huge profit year by year. After Facebook purchased, their profit getting smaller but there are so many example like Whatsapp.

But when we talk about the demand and supply of iPhones, Dollars, and IBM shares, we are talking about things of value which exist outside the place(database) where the information about these things exists. There is no demand for number 5 in a database, where this database represents the number of iPhones in a warehouse for e.g. The demand is for things(iPhones) which are actual devices, and which exist outside the database. So, the demand is for an actual thing, while number in a database is just a symbol that quantifies that thing. The same is true for Dollars or IBM shares.

Bitcoin on the other hand, is not an actual thing outside the database. It is just an entry in a database that points to another entry in the same database. One entry is a number written in numerical symbols — 2 for e.g., and another entry is the same number written in alphabetical symbols — bitcoin or BTC. And of course, there is no such thing as a demand for symbols in a database. What you have in the world of Bitcoin is not demand and supply, but the modification of an entry in the database when someone gives things (iPhones or Dollars) for free. On the other hand, when supply and demand meet in case of iPhones and Dollars, the modifications in store's or bank's databases are just numerical evidences that people exchanged actual things (iPhones for dollars and vice versa). And of course, these things exist outside the databases. So, there is no such thing as demand and supply in the world of bitcoin, but instead, all there is is giving your stuff for free and recording that fact into a database/public ledger/blockchain in the numerical form.

While, I say, BTC is a scam, no more, Your logic is not quite correct here.

"outside value" <-- this could be for example used energy and hardware costs. Lets assume for second, BTC is a viable product (which it is not) and accounting in this manner (decentralized blockchain) is needed. As mining is crucial operation for this product and BTCs can be added only via mining, we can say, that "outside value" is at least spent ressources on mining. Future shows of course, it was wasted, but at least by now, we need to accept, that "mining is needed and therefore has value".

But, when you "traded" iPhone for bitcoins you didn't become an owner of a certain amount of kilowatts of energy (a thing outside the database/blockchain). All that has happened is that a number in a database has changed without you becoming owner of something outside the database. Hence, you gave your iPhone for free to someone.

[dohh]

You gave us a very good example. But there is one point that is overlooked. What determines the value of iPhone, Dollars, or IBM share? You have to think about it. There is an issue in economics. Demand and supply! The value in the market is where these two meet. So, you can handle the value of Bitcoin in this way. For example, I will not sell my Bitcoin without $ 50,000. If everyone thinks so, the price rises until the buyer offers $ 50,000.

I give you a different lookout. Whatsapp doesn't produce anything and when you look at it, there's nothing material about it. But they are making huge profit year by year. After Facebook purchased, their profit getting smaller but there are so many example like Whatsapp.

But when we talk about the demand and supply of iPhones, Dollars, and IBM shares, we are talking about things of value which exist outside the place(database) where the information about these things exists. There is no demand for number 5 in a database, where this database represents the number of iPhones in a warehouse for e.g. The demand is for things(iPhones) which are actual devices, and which exist outside the database. So, the demand is for an actual thing, while number in a database is just a symbol that quantifies that thing. The same is true for Dollars or IBM shares.

Bitcoin on the other hand, is not an actual thing outside the database. It is just an entry in a database that points to another entry in the same database. One entry is a number written in numerical symbols — 2 for e.g., and another entry is the same number written in alphabetical symbols — bitcoin or BTC. And of course, there is no such thing as a demand for symbols in a database. What you have in the world of Bitcoin is not demand and supply, but the modification of an entry in the database when someone gives things (iPhones or Dollars) for free. On the other hand, when supply and demand meet in case of iPhones and Dollars, the modifications in store's or bank's databases are just numerical evidences that people exchanged actual things (iPhones for dollars and vice versa). And of course, these things exist outside the databases. So, there is no such thing as demand and supply in the world of bitcoin, but instead, all there is is giving your stuff for free and recording that fact into a database/public ledger/blockchain in the numerical form.

While, I say, BTC is a scam, no more, Your logic is not quite correct here.

"outside value" <-- this could be for example used energy and hardware costs. Lets assume for second, BTC is a viable product (which it is not) and accounting in this manner (decentralized blockchain) is needed. As mining is crucial operation for this product and BTCs can be added only via mining, we can say, that "outside value" is at least spent ressources on mining. Future shows of course, it was wasted, but at least by now, we need to accept, that "mining is needed and therefore has value".

But, when you "traded" iPhone for bitcoins you didn't become an owner of a certain amount of kilowatts of energy (a thing outside the database/blockchain). All that has happened is that a number in a database has changed without you becoming owner of something outside the database. Hence, you gave your iPhone for free to someone.

Yes, but You got ownership for some amount on scarcity, because BTC coins needed to be mined and that mining is claimed to be proof of Your asset transferred to me. That of course is not same as usefulness. My saliva is scarce as well, but not very expensive.

In theory: if we both agreed, that BTC holds that value (at least invested energy) and we both are willing to pay approximately that amount, then it could serve as currency. You may also pay me in potatoes for Iphone, if we both believe, I can get another phone tomorrow for these same potatoes.

Overall: if BTC technology was possible for usage in wide and long term money transfers, it would indeed have value. But it is not. It is a scam.

[dohh]

You gave us a very good example. But there is one point that is overlooked. What determines the value of iPhone, Dollars, or IBM share? You have to think about it. There is an issue in economics. Demand and supply! The value in the market is where these two meet. So, you can handle the value of Bitcoin in this way. For example, I will not sell my Bitcoin without $ 50,000. If everyone thinks so, the price rises until the buyer offers $ 50,000.

I give you a different lookout. Whatsapp doesn't produce anything and when you look at it, there's nothing material about it. But they are making huge profit year by year. After Facebook purchased, their profit getting smaller but there are so many example like Whatsapp.

But when we talk about the demand and supply of iPhones, Dollars, and IBM shares, we are talking about things of value which exist outside the place(database) where the information about these things exists. There is no demand for number 5 in a database, where this database represents the number of iPhones in a warehouse for e.g. The demand is for things(iPhones) which are actual devices, and which exist outside the database. So, the demand is for an actual thing, while number in a database is just a symbol that quantifies that thing. The same is true for Dollars or IBM shares.

Bitcoin on the other hand, is not an actual thing outside the database. It is just an entry in a database that points to another entry in the same database. One entry is a number written in numerical symbols — 2 for e.g., and another entry is the same number written in alphabetical symbols — bitcoin or BTC. And of course, there is no such thing as a demand for symbols in a database. What you have in the world of Bitcoin is not demand and supply, but the modification of an entry in the database when someone gives things (iPhones or Dollars) for free. On the other hand, when supply and demand meet in case of iPhones and Dollars, the modifications in store's or bank's databases are just numerical evidences that people exchanged actual things (iPhones for dollars and vice versa). And of course, these things exist outside the databases. So, there is no such thing as demand and supply in the world of bitcoin, but instead, all there is is giving your stuff for free and recording that fact into a database/public ledger/blockchain in the numerical form.

While, I say, BTC is a scam, no more, Your logic is not quite correct here.

"outside value" <-- this could be for example used energy and hardware costs. Lets assume for second, BTC is a viable product (which it is not) and accounting in this manner (decentralized blockchain) is needed. As mining is crucial operation for this product and BTCs can be added only via mining, we can say, that "outside value" is at least spent ressources on mining. Future shows of course, it was wasted, but at least by now, we need to accept, that "mining is needed and therefore has value".

But, when you "traded" iPhone for bitcoins you didn't become an owner of a certain amount of kilowatts of energy (a thing outside the database/blockchain). All that has happened is that a number in a database has changed without you becoming owner of something outside the database. Hence, you gave your iPhone for free to someone.

Yes, but You got ownership for some amount on scarcity, because BTC coins needed to be mined and that mining is claimed to be proof of Your asset transferred to me. That of course is not same as usefulness. My saliva is scarce as well, but not very expensive.

In theory: if we both agreed, that BTC holds that value (at least invested energy) and we both are willing to pay approximately that amount, then it could serve as currency. You may also pay me in potatoes for Iphone, if we both believe, I can get another phone tomorrow for these same potatoes.

Overall: if BTC technology was possible for usage in wide and long term money transfers, it would indeed have value. But it is not. It is a scam.

By the way, I buy iPhone for dollars its the same - You get amount of scarcity, plus its backed up with reasonable expetation, that I can buy something else tomorrow for those dollars. If You were able to print out dollars, I would not buy Iphone for dollars, right?

[fxsurfer]

You gave us a very good example. But there is one point that is overlooked. What determines the value of iPhone, Dollars, or IBM share? You have to think about it. There is an issue in economics. Demand and supply! The value in the market is where these two meet. So, you can handle the value of Bitcoin in this way. For example, I will not sell my Bitcoin without $ 50,000. If everyone thinks so, the price rises until the buyer offers $ 50,000.

I give you a different lookout. Whatsapp doesn't produce anything and when you look at it, there's nothing material about it. But they are making huge profit year by year. After Facebook purchased, their profit getting smaller but there are so many example like Whatsapp.

But when we talk about the demand and supply of iPhones, Dollars, and IBM shares, we are talking about things of value which exist outside the place(database) where the information about these things exists. There is no demand for number 5 in a database, where this database represents the number of iPhones in a warehouse for e.g. The demand is for things(iPhones) which are actual devices, and which exist outside the database. So, the demand is for an actual thing, while number in a database is just a symbol that quantifies that thing. The same is true for Dollars or IBM shares.

Bitcoin on the other hand, is not an actual thing outside the database. It is just an entry in a database that points to another entry in the same database. One entry is a number written in numerical symbols — 2 for e.g., and another entry is the same number written in alphabetical symbols — bitcoin or BTC. And of course, there is no such thing as a demand for symbols in a database. What you have in the world of Bitcoin is not demand and supply, but the modification of an entry in the database when someone gives things (iPhones or Dollars) for free. On the other hand, when supply and demand meet in case of iPhones and Dollars, the modifications in store's or bank's databases are just numerical evidences that people exchanged actual things (iPhones for dollars and vice versa). And of course, these things exist outside the databases. So, there is no such thing as demand and supply in the world of bitcoin, but instead, all there is is giving your stuff for free and recording that fact into a database/public ledger/blockchain in the numerical form.

While, I say, BTC is a scam, no more, Your logic is not quite correct here.

"outside value" <-- this could be for example used energy and hardware costs. Lets assume for second, BTC is a viable product (which it is not) and accounting in this manner (decentralized blockchain) is needed. As mining is crucial operation for this product and BTCs can be added only via mining, we can say, that "outside value" is at least spent ressources on mining. Future shows of course, it was wasted, but at least by now, we need to accept, that "mining is needed and therefore has value".

But, when you "traded" iPhone for bitcoins you didn't become an owner of a certain amount of kilowatts of energy (a thing outside the database/blockchain). All that has happened is that a number in a database has changed without you becoming owner of something outside the database. Hence, you gave your iPhone for free to someone.

Yes, but You got ownership for some amount on scarcity, because BTC coins needed to be mined and that mining is claimed to be proof of Your asset transferred to me. That of course is not same as usefulness. My saliva is scarce as well, but not very expensive.

In theory: if we both agreed, that BTC holds that value (at least invested energy) and we both are willing to pay approximately that amount, then it could serve as currency. You may also pay me in potatoes for Iphone, if we both believe, I can get another phone tomorrow for these same potatoes.

Overall: if BTC technology was possible for usage in wide and long term money transfers, it would indeed have value. But it is not. It is a scam.

Scarcity means the limited availability of a thing. Hence, you cannot 'own scarcity', only things can be owned. But, as I have shown, Bitcoin is not a thing, but the name for the number in a database. If this number needed to be mined before put into database, it is still a number - it  didn't magically become something outside the database.

If we both agreed, that BTC (a number in a database) holds value then we are simply ignorant of the truth that number is not the same as value. Number (entry in column B of our database) is symbol that quantifies a thing outside the database ( iPhone, Dollar or IBM share), while value is the feature of that thing. Since bitcoin is just a number in a database that quantifies nothing outside that database, it cannot have value in principle.

Regarding potatoes and iPhone, they are actual things and not entries in a database, regardless of what we both believe.

[Kprawn]

So, the argument falls flat when you look at actual IBM shares. It is just a piece of paper or a entry on a digital database and

nothing different to Bitcoin. You can also transfer bitcoins onto a piece of paper (Paper Wallet) and have a physical

representation of the value you own in the digital world. The good part about bitcoins is that the database is stored in a

decentralized Blockchain and not on some centralized (outdated) database that can be shutdown or manipulated by these

centralized authorities.  

[fxsurfer]

So, the argument falls flat when you look at actual IBM shares. It is just a piece of paper or a entry on a digital database and

nothing different to Bitcoin. You can also transfer bitcoins onto a piece of paper (Paper Wallet) and have a physical

representation of the value you own in the digital world. The good part about bitcoins is that the database is stored in a

decentralized Blockchain and not on some centralized (outdated) database that can be shutdown or manipulated by these

centralized authorities.  

A piece of paper is not a share, but a medium. An entry in a digital database is also not a share but, either a symbol which quantifies the number of shares (150) or a symbol that identifies a share (IBM). Share is the ownership in the company (International Business Machines)  - which is an actual thing - outside the database. Bitcoin is not an actual thing - outside the database - but a number in a database. So the difference is huge.

[franky1]

i think fx surfer is trying to look smart. but is not looking outside of the box.
its like them blonde women you meet that are philosophy majors...

its as if he is saying that a song is just vibrations on the eardrum and has no value
anything computerised is just binary digits and has no value
objects are just organised combinations of atoms and has no value

and i dont think he will see the big picture about cost, utility, function that creates value
so he might aswell lock his topic and live in a no value world of atoms, vibrations and binary

maybe, just maybe
one day he will learn that the binary digits that make up the ledger has an actual function.
that creating the database has a cost.
and for people that want and need that function are happy to pay the cost of its creation.

if he wants a zero cost database then he can go make a PoS coin and go hand out free coins like all the other crapcoins about.

[fxsurfer]

i think fx surfer is trying to look smart. but is not looking outside of the box.
its like them blonde women you meet that are philosophy majors...

its as if he is saying that a song is just vibrations on the eardrum and has no value
anything computerised is just binary digits and has no value
objects are just organised combinations of atoms and has no value

and i dont think he will see the big picture about cost, utility, function that creates value
so he might aswell lock his topic and live in a no value world of atoms, vibrations and binary

maybe, just maybe
one day he will learn that the binary digits that make up the ledger has an actual function.
that creating the database has a cost.
and for people that want and need that function are happy to pay the cost of its creation.

if he wants a zero cost database then he can go make a PoS coin and go hand out free coins like all the other crapcoins about.

A song  - for e.g. "I Just Called to Say I Love You", indeed has value. But, numerical symbols that represent the order of this song in the Love Songs database have no value.

Binary digits also have value, except if they are quantifiers in a database. Microsoft Word is a computerised thing (just binary digits) and it has value because it is used as a word processor. Microsoft Word is not an entry in a database.

Sure, some objects are just combinations of atoms without value, like Bitcoin or dirt for e.g. Point?

Regarding the big picture. Costs of brute force cannot chage the fact that the result of the brute force is a number in a database, which has zero value. Utility and function are abstract terms that cannot create value. Value is created by agents or machines.

Finally, I do not deny that the binary digits that make up the bitcoin ledger have an actual function - they provide numerical evidence that someone gave its iPhone or money for free. If I gave you iPhone as a gift and as a result I enter a number into some excel database, for e.g. "1.25", and than give name to it - for e.g. ExcelCoin, that does not mean that ExcelCoin has value. ExcelCoin is just a numerical evidence that I gave you a thing for free.

[dohh]

i think fx surfer is trying to look smart. but is not looking outside of the box.
its like them blonde women you meet that are philosophy majors...

its as if he is saying that a song is just vibrations on the eardrum and has no value
anything computerised is just binary digits and has no value
objects are just organised combinations of atoms and has no value

and i dont think he will see the big picture about cost, utility, function that creates value
so he might aswell lock his topic and live in a no value world of atoms, vibrations and binary

maybe, just maybe
one day he will learn that the binary digits that make up the ledger has an actual function.
that creating the database has a cost.
and for people that want and need that function are happy to pay the cost of its creation.

if he wants a zero cost database then he can go make a PoS coin and go hand out free coins like all the other crapcoins about.

A song  - for e.g. "I Just Called to Say I Love You", indeed has value. But, numerical symbols that represent the order of this song in the Love Songs database have no value.

Binary digits also have value, except if they are quantifiers in a database. Microsoft Word is a computerised thing (just binary digits) and it has value because it used as a word processor. Microsoft Word is not an entry in a database.

Sure, some objects are just combinations of atoms without value, like Bitcoin or dirt for e.g. Point?

Regarding the big picture. Costs of brute force cannot chage the fact that the result of the brute force is a number in a database, which has zero value. Utility and function are abstract terms that cannot create value. Value is created by agents or machines.

Finally, I do not deny that the binary digits that make up the bitcoin ledger have an actual function - they provide numerical evidence that someone gave its iPhone or money for free. If I gave you iPhone as a gift and as a result I enter a number into some excel database, for e.g. "1.25", and than give name to it - for e.g. ExcelCoin, that does not mean that ExcelCoin has value. ExcelCoin is just a numerical evidence that I gave you a thing for free.

fxsurfer: You actually harm crypto-sceptics, by telling weak arguments and sticking to them, when You are not right...

OK, for sake of simplicity, I leave everything other aside: does at least  user base have a value in Your eyes?

It does not even matter, if BTC is legit or scam, it does have value due to its user base alone already. Doesnt matter if that value is healthy or criminal. It still does have value for at least many people, if not all. If You say You would not pay 1 dollar for BTC, then You could say, that BTC has no value in Your opinion. I know, how to earn from BTC, I dont buy it, because I also know its  a scam and being responsible of what I do, has more value for me, than earning opportunities from BTC.

[dohh]

fxsurfer: or one more time very shortly - value of Your "database" is, that Your given names use exactly that database and not the ones of competitors...

[squatter]

So, Peter owns 2 numbers and Peter owns number 2. But how can someone own a number? The first three rows in our database clearly show that numbers are just means to quantify things, they are not things that are owned. As such, these numbers are valueless on their own, and they can be created out of thin air.

Bitcoin is a "thing" just like the others, which is why it's generally treated as property or currency. The fact that you can only fathom bitcoins as "numbers" is just a function of your own limitations.

And bitcoins definitely can't be created out of thin air. You can spin up another new cryptocurrency out of thin air, but not bitcoins. People across the world run Bitcoin nodes that enforce the protocol. They completely ignore any attempts to print BTC out of thin air.

[fxsurfer]

i think fx surfer is trying to look smart. but is not looking outside of the box.
its like them blonde women you meet that are philosophy majors...

its as if he is saying that a song is just vibrations on the eardrum and has no value
anything computerised is just binary digits and has no value
objects are just organised combinations of atoms and has no value

and i dont think he will see the big picture about cost, utility, function that creates value
so he might aswell lock his topic and live in a no value world of atoms, vibrations and binary

maybe, just maybe
one day he will learn that the binary digits that make up the ledger has an actual function.
that creating the database has a cost.
and for people that want and need that function are happy to pay the cost of its creation.

if he wants a zero cost database then he can go make a PoS coin and go hand out free coins like all the other crapcoins about.

A song  - for e.g. "I Just Called to Say I Love You", indeed has value. But, numerical symbols that represent the order of this song in the Love Songs database have no value.

Binary digits also have value, except if they are quantifiers in a database. Microsoft Word is a computerised thing (just binary digits) and it has value because it used as a word processor. Microsoft Word is not an entry in a database.

Sure, some objects are just combinations of atoms without value, like Bitcoin or dirt for e.g. Point?

Regarding the big picture. Costs of brute force cannot chage the fact that the result of the brute force is a number in a database, which has zero value. Utility and function are abstract terms that cannot create value. Value is created by agents or machines.

Finally, I do not deny that the binary digits that make up the bitcoin ledger have an actual function - they provide numerical evidence that someone gave its iPhone or money for free. If I gave you iPhone as a gift and as a result I enter a number into some excel database, for e.g. "1.25", and than give name to it - for e.g. ExcelCoin, that does not mean that ExcelCoin has value. ExcelCoin is just a numerical evidence that I gave you a thing for free.

fxsurfer: You actually harm crypto-sceptics, by telling weak arguments and sticking to them, when You are not right...

OK, for sake of simplicity, I leave everything other aside: does at least  user base have a value in Your eyes?

It does not even matter, if BTC is legit or scam, it does have value due to its user base alone already. Doesnt matter if that value is healthy or criminal. It still does have value for at least many people, if not all. If You say You would not pay 1 dollar for BTC, then You could say, that BTC has no value in Your opinion. I know, how to earn from BTC, I dont buy it, because I also know its  a scam and being responsible of what I do, has more value for me, than earning opportunities from BTC.

The fact that lots of people put numbers into a database when they give their stuff for free has nothing to do with "value". Value is the feature of a thing which resides outside the database, while entry in a database is just an abstract mathematical object without value.

[fxsurfer]

So, Peter owns 2 numbers and Peter owns number 2. But how can someone own a number? The first three rows in our database clearly show that numbers are just means to quantify things, they are not things that are owned. As such, these numbers are valueless on their own, and they can be created out of thin air.

Bitcoin is a "thing" just like the others, which is why it's generally treated as property or currency. The fact that you can only fathom bitcoins as "numbers" is just a function of your own limitations.

And bitcoins definitely can't be created out of thin air. You can spin up another new cryptocurrency out of thin air, but not bitcoins. People across the world run Bitcoin nodes that enforce the protocol. They completely ignore any attempts to print BTC out of thin air.

Bitcoin is a number in a database, not a thing. A thing is some entity, object, or creature that exists outside the database which contains some data about it. I explained this already.

[shield132]

You have to realize that in 21th century virtual things have value too, it's part of real world. Bitcoin is as usable as paper notes you have in pocket. You just transfer that notes into bitcoin and oppositely, transfer bitcoins into notes. Bitcoin isn't like an air, it has it's advantages to mine so it's not freely created, something was wasted for it and it's electricity + components of equipment.

[franky1]

guys no point replying to FXsurfer..
he is now trolling like a flat earther.
just let the topic die out

and i dont think he will see the big picture about cost, utility, function that creates value

maybe, just maybe
one day he will learn that the binary digits that make up the ledger has an actual function.
that creating the database has a cost.
and for people that want and need that function are happy to pay the cost of its creation.

but until then. no point going around in circles, unless he is ready to learn the big picture stuff

[fxsurfer]

You have to realize that in 21th century virtual things have value too, it's part of real world. Bitcoin is as usable as paper notes you have in pocket. You just transfer that notes into bitcoin and oppositely, transfer bitcoins into notes. Bitcoin isn't like an air, it has it's advantages to mine so it's not freely created, something was wasted for it and it's electricity + components of equipment.

I agree that digital things in 21th century have value, except if they are quantifiers in a database. Quantifiers have no value since they are only symbols that provide information about the quantity or other properties of digital or physical things. Things which are quantified are what have value.

Bitcoin is not usable as paper notes I have in pocket. Paper notes are usable because they are certificates of ownership of legally enforceable claims on land, cars, homes or incomes of borrowers. Numbers on paper notes are quantifiers of those claims. Hence, it is not numbers (symbols) on paper notes what have value, but claims. On the other hand, bitcoin is the name of the number in a database that quantifies nothing outside the database - no claims exist that are quantified with it. As such, it is completely unusable. The fact that number connected to your address has changed when you gave your iPhone for free to someone, is like changing A to B or changing the position of glass on a table. Simply put, changing the state of some digital or physical object doesn't make you the owner of something valuable. In other words, the fact that the state of a number is some database has changed has nothing to do with ownership, value or price.

[dohh]

You have to realize that in 21th century virtual things have value too, it's part of real world. Bitcoin is as usable as paper notes you have in pocket. You just transfer that notes into bitcoin and oppositely, transfer bitcoins into notes. Bitcoin isn't like an air, it has it's advantages to mine so it's not freely created, something was wasted for it and it's electricity + components of equipment.

I agree that digital things in 21th century have value, except if they are quantifiers in a database. Quantifiers have no value since they are only symbols that provide information about the quantity or other properties of digital or physical things. Things which are quantified are what have value.

Bitcoin is not usable as paper notes I have in pocket. Paper notes are usable because they are certificates of ownership of legally enforceable claims on land, cars, homes or incomes of borrowers. Numbers on paper notes are quantifiers of those claims. Hence, it is not numbers (symbols) on paper notes what have value, but claims. On the other hand, bitcoin is the name of the number in a database that quantifies nothing outside the database - no claims exist that are quantified with it. As such, it is completely unusable. The fact that number connected to your address has changed when you gave your iPhone for free to someone, is like changing A to B or changing the position of glass on a table. Simply put, changing the state of some digital or physical object doesn't make you the owner of something valuable. In other words, the fact that the state of a number is some database has changed has nothing to do with ownership, value or price.

It is possible to buy iPhone fro BTCs, although not from stores, but from other people. Therefore it has value at least in eyes of some people. Why You make fool out of Yourself and argue something, so obvious?

My collegues computer was infected with ransomware. Hackers asked to pay ONLY in bitcoins. So, it has value for hackers.

POINT IS: if something (may it be BTC or my saliva) is accepted by someone in return of trade, it has value for that person. If group of person grows big, then thing itself has value.

[Kakmakr]

guys no point replying to FXsurfer..
he is now trolling like a flat earther.
just let the topic die out

and i dont think he will see the big picture about cost, utility, function that creates value

maybe, just maybe
one day he will learn that the binary digits that make up the ledger has an actual function.
that creating the database has a cost.
and for people that want and need that function are happy to pay the cost of its creation.

but until then. no point going around in circles, unless he is ready to learn the big picture stuff

franky1 his goal was never to prove that Bitcoin has no value, it is just some click bait noise to confuse people. He is one of the well known shills on this forum and no matter what counter argument you bring here, he will have some crazy misdirected answer for that.

Just post your counter argument to clear up the possible FUD that are being spread by him and be on your way, because no debate will change his mind. <The goal is not to have a good debate about this, it is just to spread FUD>   

[Pursuer]

just because you don't understand what value means and how bitcoin has it, it doesn't mean bitcoin doesn't have value. if you start defending value the way you are doing here then about 80% of things that currently have value in the whole world become worthless.

[NeuroticFish]

In other words, column B and column C are basically the same thing - a number. It is just that column C uses alphabetic symbols, while column B uses numerical symbols.

If we go by your type of explanation, since your bank account contains some numbers and characters, it's actually worthless.
And then I have 2 questions:
1. Why do you pay for it (the bank is charging you for that account)?
2. Why don't you just donate to charity those worthless numbers from your account written under "balance"?

[fxsurfer]

You have to realize that in 21th century virtual things have value too, it's part of real world. Bitcoin is as usable as paper notes you have in pocket. You just transfer that notes into bitcoin and oppositely, transfer bitcoins into notes. Bitcoin isn't like an air, it has it's advantages to mine so it's not freely created, something was wasted for it and it's electricity + components of equipment.

I agree that digital things in 21th century have value, except if they are quantifiers in a database. Quantifiers have no value since they are only symbols that provide information about the quantity or other properties of digital or physical things. Things which are quantified are what have value.

Bitcoin is not usable as paper notes I have in pocket. Paper notes are usable because they are certificates of ownership of legally enforceable claims on land, cars, homes or incomes of borrowers. Numbers on paper notes are quantifiers of those claims. Hence, it is not numbers (symbols) on paper notes what have value, but claims. On the other hand, bitcoin is the name of the number in a database that quantifies nothing outside the database - no claims exist that are quantified with it. As such, it is completely unusable. The fact that number connected to your address has changed when you gave your iPhone for free to someone, is like changing A to B or changing the position of glass on a table. Simply put, changing the state of some digital or physical object doesn't make you the owner of something valuable. In other words, the fact that the state of a number is some database has changed has nothing to do with ownership, value or price.

It is possible to buy iPhone fro BTCs, although not from stores, but from other people. Therefore it has value at least in eyes of some people. Why You make fool out of Yourself and argue something, so obvious?

My collegues computer was infected with ransomware. Hackers asked to pay ONLY in bitcoins. So, it has value for hackers.

POINT IS: if something (may it be BTC or my saliva) is accepted by someone in return of trade, it has value for that person. If group of person grows big, then thing itself has value.

No, it is NOT possible to buy iPhone for BTCs. It is possible to give iPhone to someone for free and then to change numbers in a database. Changing numbers is not buying. Buying is acquiring the possession of something. Changed numbers are not possession. Of course, after the process of buying,  numbers in some database that represent information on the goods being stored in a warehouse can be changed. Numbers in a bank ledger (a running list of transactions to and from a bank account) can also be changed. But numbers themselves are valueless - they just express or measure the quantity of iPhones or digital money(digital certificate of ownership of legally enforceable claims on land, cars, homes or incomes of borrowers). So, you cannot buy iPhone for numbers (BTC), but someone can give you iPhone for free, and then change numbers in some database.

[fxsurfer]

In other words, column B and column C are basically the same thing - a number. It is just that column C uses alphabetic symbols, while column B uses numerical symbols.

If we go by your type of explanation, since your bank account contains some numbers and characters, it's actually worthless.
And then I have 2 questions:
1. Why do you pay for it (the bank is charging you for that account)?
2. Why don't you just donate to charity those worthless numbers from your account written under "balance"?

You are correct. Numbers in the bank accounts are worthless since the banks created them out of thin air. These numbers are just quantifiers of the obligations of the borrowers to repay their loans. Now, if borrowers have obligations, then it means that someone else has a claim. So, who has a claim? Well, both the banks, and owners of money that is created via loans. The banks because they formally issued the loans to the borrowers, and the owners of money because they literally credited borrowers with land, cars, houses and other valuable things when they traded them for the loan-created money. These two facts are formally recorded in the balance sheets of the banks. Specifically, when a bank grants a loan, the loan contract is shown both, as an increase in bank’s assets because the bank now has an additional claim on borrowers, and as a positive entry on the liability side of the bank’s balance sheet, because money owners now have an additional claim on the bank. And a claim is property in the fullest sense of that term, that it has its own value, and it may be sold, transferred, mortgaged, and inherited. Numbers in the bank accounts are worthless symbols whose only purpose is to express or measure the size of the claims in a banking system.

[NeuroticFish]

You are correct. Numbers in the bank accounts are worthless since the banks created them out of thin air. These numbers are just quantifiers of the obligations of the borrowers to repay their loans.

So you explained what a ledger is. Your logic is "interesting", the ledger applies to banks, but not to Bitcoin.
Also you didn't answer my questions.

[fxsurfer]

You are correct. Numbers in the bank accounts are worthless since the banks created them out of thin air. These numbers are just quantifiers of the obligations of the borrowers to repay their loans.

So you explained what a ledger is. Your logic is "interesting", the ledger applies to banks, but not to Bitcoin.
Also you didn't answer my questions.

A bank is a financial institution while bitcoin is a number in the ledger. So what do you mean by: "applies to" ?

Regarding your questions, I answered them indirectly, but ok, here is the direct answer.

1) Banks are business that have to cover costs associated with maintaining accounts and protecting legal claims stored in these accounts, so I have no problem to pay them for that job.  

2) Numbers cannot be donated to charity because they are just abstract mathematical objects. Only possessions (in our case certificates of ownership of claims on land, cars, homes or incomes of borrowers) can be donated. But people don't just donate their possessions to unknown persons.

[NeuroticFish]

A bank is a financial institution while bitcoin is a number in the ledger. So what do you mean by: "applies to" ?

So the banks are the only entities entitled to have ledgers we can trust? You have missed a great part of the real world.

Regarding your questions, I answered the indirectly, but ok, here is the direct answer.

1) Banks are a business that have to cover costs associated with maintaining accounts and protecting legal claims stored in these accounts, so I have no problem to pay them for that job.  

And then why are you so reluctant in using (and paying to use) a ledger maintained by the community, in a way nobody can cheat it?

2) Numbers cannot be donated to charity because they are just abstract mathematical objects. Only possessions (in our case certificates of ownership of claims on land, cars, homes or incomes of borrowers) can be donated. But people don't just donate their possessions to unknown persons.

So the amount in bank is abstract mathematical object, however you trust you will get goods in exchange for that (eg. via debit cards), while you claim that the abstract mathematical objects from Bitcoin ledger are worthless.
See the/your double standards here? Imho you just contradicted your own logic, meaning that the initial "logic" is faulty.

PS. People do donate now and then. And even gold, or paper money, or even a sandwich are things you can posses and can donate; however, it's not important in the main discussion.

[larrylegend33]

If the Bitcoin dies i would say all of us the millions of people in here bitcointalk would die too..   We can say this easly if the Bitcoin dies every altcoins and all the cryptocurrency market dies. So it would be end of everthing.. Our investments, our home made work life.. Anything.. So please nothing happens to BTC..

[funchiestz]

its actually deeper than supply and demand.
when you take in the cost of acquiring bitcoin. and then thats the underlying value no one would be willing to sell below because they wouldnt ever dream of selling for less then they acquird if for.

its then where people speculate a profitable PRICE above bottomline costs which they would sell for. and thats the speculative PRICE above value.
read my post above to explain that part known as 'value' (bottomline acquisition cost)

I think anyone who needs money can sell Bitcoin from cheap. Just like with other products. Another element of cost, another element of cash, but I still respect your opinion.

But when we talk about the demand and supply of iPhones, Dollars, and IBM shares, we are talking about things of value which exist outside the place(database) where the information about these things exists. There is no demand for number 5 in a database, where this database represents the number of iPhones in a warehouse for e.g. The demand is for things(iPhones) which are actual devices, and which exist outside the database. So, the demand is for an actual thing, while number in a database is just a symbol that quantifies that thing. The same is true for Dollars or IBM shares.

Bitcoin on the other hand, is not an actual thing outside the database. It is just an entry in a database that points to another entry in the same database. One entry is a number written in numerical symbols — 2 for e.g., and another entry is the same number written in alphabetical symbols — bitcoin or BTC. And of course, there is no such thing as a demand for symbols in a database. What you have in the world of Bitcoin is not demand and supply, but the modification of an entry in the database when someone gives things (iPhones or Dollars) for free. On the other hand, when supply and demand meet in case of iPhones and Dollars, the modifications in store's or bank's databases are just numerical evidences that people exchanged actual things (iPhones for dollars and vice versa). And of course, these things exist outside the databases. So, there is no such thing as demand and supply in the world of bitcoin, but instead, all there is is giving your stuff for free and recording that fact into a database/public ledger/blockchain in the numerical form.

I don't agree with what you say. As you say, Bitcoin is out of the system like other examples, the comparison is not correct. So we shouldn't compare these other examples with Bitcoin. But there is, IBM share whatever Bitcoin it is! You need to think of Bitcoin as a currency like USD. If you don't have enough demand behind the USD, it will be as valuable as a piece of paper. Bitcoin doesn't have the same demand, it's just a coding in the virtual world.

[fxsurfer]

So the banks are the only entities entitled to have ledgers we can trust? You have missed a great part of the real world.

So instead of answering my question you just made a generic statement that has nothing to do with the things I am saying. Ok your choice.

And then why are you so reluctant in using (and paying to use) a ledger maintained by the community, in a way nobody can cheat it?

Because it is a fake ledger whose data points to nothing. It is just empty numbers connected to the addresses. Legitimate ledgers contain data about the quantities or other properties of digital or physical things that are owned and have value. Hence data is simply an emergent property, a symbolic representation of the actual thing, and without the thing itself data is useless. Bitcoin is just symbols/digital bits in memory that are not an emergent property of the actual thing that is owned and have value, and its only purpose is alteration once someone gave their possessions for free. If nobody can cheat in data alteration that doesn't mean data has value. Data is just a sequence of one or more symbols and it cannot have value in principle.  

So the amount in bank is abstract mathematical object, however you trust you will get goods in exchange for that (eg. via debit cards), while you claim that the abstract mathematical objects from Bitcoin ledger are worthless.

See the/your double standards here? Imho you just contradicted your own logic, meaning that the initial "logic" is faulty.

PS. People do donate now and then. And even gold, or paper money, or even a sandwich are things you can posses and can donate; however, it's not important in the main discussion.

The amount in bank is mathematical object that measures the share in the total claims that originated from the total borrowers liabilities. And claims are not based on trust but on legal enforceability. What that means in practice is that borrowers have two options: either they will sell their services and valuable things to owners of loan created money directly on the marketplace to get funds for their loan payments, or the bank will take possession of their land, cars, homes and will sell their valuable things to these owners indirectly, via foreclosure. So one way or another, legal enforceability of money, i.e. its claim status, ensures that its owners will come back into the possession of valuable things similar to those they handed out to borrowers or other people in the money circulation chain. And that’s the beauty of loan created money. Since loan is legally enforceable liability that must be settled, the demand for money stored on bank accounts or banknotes will exist as long as this type of money does. In other words, even if people completely abandon loan created money as means of exchange, the borrowers are still forced to use it until all their debt is paid off, since non-acceptance of this money won’t make borrowers’ liabilities go away. That means that ultimately, the amount in my bank account will provide me with actual things in the form of goods, services or property of borrowers, just like the gold certificates provided their owners with actual gold. To put it another way, in the past, money was backed by gold, today, it is backed by the assets of the banks and by land, cars, homes and other property of the borrowers.

So, the amount in bank is indeed abstract mathematical object, but thing represented and quantified with it is not. Bitcoin on the other hand, is abstract mathematical object that represent and quantify nothing. Hence, there is no contradiction in my logic.

[NeuroticFish]

Writing long economic sentences doesn't make your logic better. You miss a great lot of the truth and I think that you do it on purpose.
I tried to give you a chance, but I see that Franky was right. My bad for feeding the troll.

[r32godzilla]

Bitcoin is not created out of thin air.There is mining cost for bitcoins to be mined.If you had added another column for US dollar,then it would best suit for what you have mentioned.

[fxsurfer]

Bitcoin is not created out of thin air.There is mining cost for bitcoins to be mined.If you had added another column for US dollar,then it would best suit for what you have mentioned.

Yes it is, bitcoin is created out of thin air. First there was nothing in the ledger, and then there was number(bitcoin) in the ledger. Hence, out of thin air. All numbers in databases are created out of thin air. They are not "build" by adding parts gradually, step by step, like houses, cars or mobile phones are. And of course, the amount of energy spent or force applied in the process of creation does not change the fact that they are created out of thin air.

[Kprawn]

Bitcoin is not created out of thin air.There is mining cost for bitcoins to be mined.If you had added another column for US dollar,then it would best suit for what you have mentioned.

Yes it is, bitcoin is created out of thin air. First there was nothing in the ledger, and then there was number(bitcoin) in the ledger. Hence, out of thin air. All numbers in databases are created out of thin air. They are not "build" by adding parts gradually, step by step, like houses, cars or mobile phones are. And of course, the amount of energy spent or force applied in the process of creation does not change the fact that they are created out of thin air.

Ok, explain to us how a credit card gets credited by money and how fiat currencies are being duplicated out of thin air when

you deposit your physical cash into Banks and how they "duplicate" that money, when they loan it to someone else. Also

called, Fractional reserve banking , it is a banking system in which only a fraction of bank deposits are backed by actual

cash on hand and are available for withdrawal. A digital entry out of thin air... Magic Money with ZERO value.    They only

had to push a few buttons on a computer, nearly no electricity was spend to create that money. 

[BitcoinPanther]

And it is also an oxymoron to state that a bitcoin worth US $6K has a zero value, don't you think otherwise?

What happened here is that you talked about physicality. An iphone is a cellphone, a US Dollar is a paper bill and IBM Shares are bond or equity that is with proofing of a certificate or something to that effect.

It is for this mere reason that you based your assumption that bitcoin has zero value. And truly, bitcoin has no physical form simply because it was designed electronically (or digitally, whichever you prefer to call it). Just like an email, an email remains to be digital in nature with no physical form until you had that email printed. But until the printing, does it mean that the email holds no value at all? Of course not, right?

Thus, i do believe that bitcoin is more than what you think of it. It is not zero value. It has its own purchasing power.

[pixie85]

guys no point replying to FXsurfer..
he is now trolling like a flat earther.
just let the topic die out

and i dont think he will see the big picture about cost, utility, function that creates value

maybe, just maybe
one day he will learn that the binary digits that make up the ledger has an actual function.
that creating the database has a cost.
and for people that want and need that function are happy to pay the cost of its creation.

but until then. no point going around in circles, unless he is ready to learn the big picture stuff

He somehow came to a conclusion that if something doesn't physically exist or doesn't represent another physical thing, it has no value. This is simply untrue.
People are buying online games, game accounts, avatars, items like cs:go skins, ingame currencies like wow gold. All these things have value and are exchangeable for fiat money and other physical goods. You can literally exchange a cs:go skin for an iphone or an IBM share if that's what you want.

[squatter]

So, Peter owns 2 numbers and Peter owns number 2. But how can someone own a number? The first three rows in our database clearly show that numbers are just means to quantify things, they are not things that are owned. As such, these numbers are valueless on their own, and they can be created out of thin air.

Bitcoin is a "thing" just like the others, which is why it's generally treated as property or currency. The fact that you can only fathom bitcoins as "numbers" is just a function of your own limitations.

And bitcoins definitely can't be created out of thin air. You can spin up another new cryptocurrency out of thin air, but not bitcoins. People across the world run Bitcoin nodes that enforce the protocol. They completely ignore any attempts to print BTC out of thin air.

Bitcoin is a number in a database, not a thing. A thing is some entity, object, or creature that exists outside the database which contains some data about it. I explained this already.

That explanation is completely inadequate. Why do bitcoins need to be "things" at all? This is a requirement you invented without reason. You say, "if we now ask what actual thing outside the database is owned by Peter, we face an inherent contradiction."

Owning bitcoins doesn't entail owning "things outside the decentralized ledger." Why would it need to? The whole point is that they're a native currency in a monetary network. If you have a balance at a bank, you don't have a "thing" to show for it either -- only numbers in the bank's database, numbers on a screen. Do dollars have no value when they're just numbers in a database? What matters is what other people will pay for them, not your circular proofs that depend on your cherry-picked definitions.

Also, let's take a look at the definition of "thing."

1 : an object or entity not precisely designated or capable of being designated. 2a : an inanimate object distinguished from a living being. b : a separate and distinct individual quality, fact, idea, or usually entity. 5a : possessions, effects. 5b : whatever may be possessed or owned or be the object of a right.

How are bitcoins not "things?"

[Twinscoin2017]

guys no point replying to FXsurfer..
he is now trolling like a flat earther.
just let the topic die out

and i dont think he will see the big picture about cost, utility, function that creates value

maybe, just maybe
one day he will learn that the binary digits that make up the ledger has an actual function.
that creating the database has a cost.
and for people that want and need that function are happy to pay the cost of its creation.

but until then. no point going around in circles, unless he is ready to learn the big picture stuff

He somehow came to a conclusion that if something doesn't physically exist or doesn't represent another physical thing, it has no value. This is simply untrue.
People are buying online games, game accounts, avatars, items like cs:go skins, ingame currencies like wow gold. All these things have value and are exchangeable for fiat money and other physical goods. You can literally exchange a cs:go skin for an iphone or an IBM share if that's what you want.

I believe that there is no proof that the bitcoin will fall into zero value, the demand and it's usage is clearly amazing followed by its price. So I think bitcoin will soon rise and we can earn on it. So for now We need to prepare for its amazing rise in the near future. Let us buy more bitcoin and earn a lot during the price will rise.

[Froy]

I will not say that bitcoin is now losing a lot, because the price for the coin is built very well, despite all the negative signs in the crypto-currency market, and in General in the world a bad reputation.

[fxsurfer]

Bitcoin is not created out of thin air.There is mining cost for bitcoins to be mined.If you had added another column for US dollar,then it would best suit for what you have mentioned.

Yes it is, bitcoin is created out of thin air. First there was nothing in the ledger, and then there was number(bitcoin) in the ledger. Hence, out of thin air. All numbers in databases are created out of thin air. They are not "build" by adding parts gradually, step by step, like houses, cars or mobile phones are. And of course, the amount of energy spent or force applied in the process of creation does not change the fact that they are created out of thin air.

Ok, explain to us how a credit card gets credited by money and how fiat currencies are being duplicated out of thin air when

you deposit your physical cash into Banks and how they "duplicate" that money, when they loan it to someone else. Also

called, Fractional reserve banking , it is a banking system in which only a fraction of bank deposits are backed by actual

cash on hand and are available for withdrawal. A digital entry out of thin air... Magic Money with ZERO value.    They only

had to push a few buttons on a computer, nearly no electricity was spend to create that money.  

I explained this already in the posts above. Numbers on bank accounts are created out of thin air, but it is not this numbers what have value.  Things like bank reserves, bank liabilities, collateral, borrowers liabilities and claims that are derived from these liabilities have value.

Numbers are just worthless symbols whose only purpose is to express the size of these claims and that is why they can be created out of thin air. If you measure the height of a building you've created numbers out of thin air, but it is building what has value, not numbers.  

[fxsurfer]

And it is also an oxymoron to state that a bitcoin worth US $6K has a zero value, don't you think otherwise?

What happened here is that you talked about physicality. An iphone is a cellphone, a US Dollar is a paper bill and IBM Shares are bond or equity that is with proofing of a certificate or something to that effect.

It is for this mere reason that you based your assumption that bitcoin has zero value. And truly, bitcoin has no physical form simply because it was designed electronically (or digitally, whichever you prefer to call it). Just like an email, an email remains to be digital in nature with no physical form until you had that email printed. But until the printing, does it mean that the email holds no value at all? Of course not, right?

Thus, i do believe that bitcoin is more than what you think of it. It is not zero value. It has its own purchasing power.

E-mail has value because it contains information about some aspect of reality i.e. it provides the answer to a question of some kind or resolves uncertainty. Bitcoin has zero value because it is just empty number connected to the addresses, it is just numerical symbols that point to nothing in the real world. Numerical symbols are valueless on their own. "45437368752737"  - I just created numerical symbols out of thin air.  Do they have value? Of course not. "11" - my computer just find this symbols via brute-force i.e. by spending energy. Did this gave these symbols value? Of course not - they are still just symbols in a memory. If I give name to them, for. e.g.  - XYZCoin, does this make them valuable? Of course not - naming something doesn't change its properties. Now, if I write them down into some database ("XYZ blockchain"), and connect them to some address(name): "John - 11", because John gave me 1,000,000 US Dollars, does that mean that two bytes stored in memory have value of a house. Of course not, these bytes are just as worthless as before  - their properties didn't change just because John did something. By connecting them to "John" we simply marked the fact that John gave me 1,000,000 US Dollars for free. We could also mark this event with symbols "John  - STUPID". Nothing would change. Symbols would stay symbols i.e. linguistic or mathematical objects with zero value.

[fxsurfer]

So, Peter owns 2 numbers and Peter owns number 2. But how can someone own a number? The first three rows in our database clearly show that numbers are just means to quantify things, they are not things that are owned. As such, these numbers are valueless on their own, and they can be created out of thin air.

Bitcoin is a "thing" just like the others, which is why it's generally treated as property or currency. The fact that you can only fathom bitcoins as "numbers" is just a function of your own limitations.

And bitcoins definitely can't be created out of thin air. You can spin up another new cryptocurrency out of thin air, but not bitcoins. People across the world run Bitcoin nodes that enforce the protocol. They completely ignore any attempts to print BTC out of thin air.

Bitcoin is a number in a database, not a thing. A thing is some entity, object, or creature that exists outside the database which contains some data about it. I explained this already.

That explanation is completely inadequate. Why do bitcoins need to be "things" at all? This is a requirement you invented without reason. You say, "if we now ask what actual thing outside the database is owned by Peter, we face an inherent contradiction."

Owning bitcoins doesn't entail owning "things outside the decentralized ledger." Why would it need to? The whole point is that they're a native currency in a monetary network. If you have a balance at a bank, you don't have a "thing" to show for it either -- only numbers in the bank's database, numbers on a screen. Do dollars have no value when they're just numbers in a database? What matters is what other people will pay for them, not your circular proofs that depend on your cherry-picked definitions.

Also, let's take a look at the definition of "thing."

1 : an object or entity not precisely designated or capable of being designated. 2a : an inanimate object distinguished from a living being. b : a separate and distinct individual quality, fact, idea, or usually entity. 5a : possessions, effects. 5b : whatever may be possessed or owned or be the object of a right.

How are bitcoins not "things?"

Everything in universe that is made up of atoms can be called a thing. But does that mean everything has value? Of course not. So even if we call bitcoin a thing this doesn't make it valuable.

[dohh]

Bitcoin is not created out of thin air.There is mining cost for bitcoins to be mined.If you had added another column for US dollar,then it would best suit for what you have mentioned.

Yes it is, bitcoin is created out of thin air. First there was nothing in the ledger, and then there was number(bitcoin) in the ledger. Hence, out of thin air. All numbers in databases are created out of thin air. They are not "build" by adding parts gradually, step by step, like houses, cars or mobile phones are. And of course, the amount of energy spent or force applied in the process of creation does not change the fact that they are created out of thin air.

Ok, explain to us how a credit card gets credited by money and how fiat currencies are being duplicated out of thin air when

you deposit your physical cash into Banks and how they "duplicate" that money, when they loan it to someone else. Also

called, Fractional reserve banking , it is a banking system in which only a fraction of bank deposits are backed by actual

cash on hand and are available for withdrawal. A digital entry out of thin air... Magic Money with ZERO value.    They only

had to push a few buttons on a computer, nearly no electricity was spend to create that money.  

I explained this already in the posts above. Numbers on bank accounts are created out of thin air, but it is not this numbers what have value.  Things like bank reserves, bank liabilities, collateral, borrowers liabilities and claims that are derived from these liabilities have value.

Numbers are just worthless symbols whose only purpose is to express the size of these claims and that is why they can be created out of thin air. If you measure the height of a building you've created numbers out of thin air, but it is building what has value, not numbers.  

You are just not the sharpest pencil in the box, thats all. I wont even explain You, how macro economics work, You are unable to understand even the simplest and most obvious arguments.

Your employer transfers Your salary, that You get for... I dont know... selling hot dogs... to Your bank account. Its is Your jobs value converted into more usable form - Your bank balance. Wtf You speak about, numbers have no value?

Your bank balance, usable in most places, together with reasonable assurance, that someone else can not use it instead of You - this is value. You basically carry Your job´s value with You, with opportunity to use it where You like and on what You like.

[fxsurfer]

Bitcoin is not created out of thin air.There is mining cost for bitcoins to be mined.If you had added another column for US dollar,then it would best suit for what you have mentioned.

Yes it is, bitcoin is created out of thin air. First there was nothing in the ledger, and then there was number(bitcoin) in the ledger. Hence, out of thin air. All numbers in databases are created out of thin air. They are not "build" by adding parts gradually, step by step, like houses, cars or mobile phones are. And of course, the amount of energy spent or force applied in the process of creation does not change the fact that they are created out of thin air.

Ok, explain to us how a credit card gets credited by money and how fiat currencies are being duplicated out of thin air when

you deposit your physical cash into Banks and how they "duplicate" that money, when they loan it to someone else. Also

called, Fractional reserve banking , it is a banking system in which only a fraction of bank deposits are backed by actual

cash on hand and are available for withdrawal. A digital entry out of thin air... Magic Money with ZERO value.    They only

had to push a few buttons on a computer, nearly no electricity was spend to create that money.  

I explained this already in the posts above. Numbers on bank accounts are created out of thin air, but it is not this numbers what have value.  Things like bank reserves, bank liabilities, collateral, borrowers liabilities and claims that are derived from these liabilities have value.

Numbers are just worthless symbols whose only purpose is to express the size of these claims and that is why they can be created out of thin air. If you measure the height of a building you've created numbers out of thin air, but it is building what has value, not numbers.  

You are just not the sharpest pencil in the box, thats all. I wont even explain You, how macro economics work, You are unable to understand even the simplest and most obvious arguments.

Your employer transfers Your salary, that You get for... I dont know... selling hot dogs... to Your bank account. Its is Your jobs value converted into more usable form - Your bank balance. Wtf You speak about, numbers have no value?

Your bank balance, usable in most places, together with reasonable assurance, that someone else can not use it instead of You - this is value. You basically carry Your job´s value with You, with opportunity to use it where You like and on what You like.

Well, you are the one who is unable to understand even the simplest and most obvious arguments.
Numbers with symbols "USD" which exist in a banking system measure the size of the share in the total claims that originated from the total borrowers liabilities in the US monetary system. Hence, my jobs value was NOT converted into bank balance, but into share in the total claims, while the bank balance is just numerical means to express the size of that share.

[dohh]

Bitcoin is not created out of thin air.There is mining cost for bitcoins to be mined.If you had added another column for US dollar,then it would best suit for what you have mentioned.

Yes it is, bitcoin is created out of thin air. First there was nothing in the ledger, and then there was number(bitcoin) in the ledger. Hence, out of thin air. All numbers in databases are created out of thin air. They are not "build" by adding parts gradually, step by step, like houses, cars or mobile phones are. And of course, the amount of energy spent or force applied in the process of creation does not change the fact that they are created out of thin air.

Ok, explain to us how a credit card gets credited by money and how fiat currencies are being duplicated out of thin air when

you deposit your physical cash into Banks and how they "duplicate" that money, when they loan it to someone else. Also

called, Fractional reserve banking , it is a banking system in which only a fraction of bank deposits are backed by actual

cash on hand and are available for withdrawal. A digital entry out of thin air... Magic Money with ZERO value.    They only

had to push a few buttons on a computer, nearly no electricity was spend to create that money.  

I explained this already in the posts above. Numbers on bank accounts are created out of thin air, but it is not this numbers what have value.  Things like bank reserves, bank liabilities, collateral, borrowers liabilities and claims that are derived from these liabilities have value.

Numbers are just worthless symbols whose only purpose is to express the size of these claims and that is why they can be created out of thin air. If you measure the height of a building you've created numbers out of thin air, but it is building what has value, not numbers.  

You are just not the sharpest pencil in the box, thats all. I wont even explain You, how macro economics work, You are unable to understand even the simplest and most obvious arguments.

Your employer transfers Your salary, that You get for... I dont know... selling hot dogs... to Your bank account. Its is Your jobs value converted into more usable form - Your bank balance. Wtf You speak about, numbers have no value?

Your bank balance, usable in most places, together with reasonable assurance, that someone else can not use it instead of You - this is value. You basically carry Your job´s value with You, with opportunity to use it where You like and on what You like.

Well, you are the one who is unable to understand even the simplest and most obvious arguments.
Numbers with symbols "USD" which exist in a banking system measure the size of the share in the total claims that originated from the total borrowers liabilities in the US monetary system. Hence, my jobs value was NOT converted into bank balance, but into share in the total claims, while bank balance is just numerical means to express the size of that share.

And certainty, that You can claim Your share from total pool of claims, anywhere You are and with very high (almost all certainly) probability there will be no problems with that, it is what makes it valuable. But OK, that was my last answer to this topic, its a waste of time.

[BitcoinPanther]

And it is also an oxymoron to state that a bitcoin worth US $6K has a zero value, don't you think otherwise?

What happened here is that you talked about physicality. An iphone is a cellphone, a US Dollar is a paper bill and IBM Shares are bond or equity that is with proofing of a certificate or something to that effect.

It is for this mere reason that you based your assumption that bitcoin has zero value. And truly, bitcoin has no physical form simply because it was designed electronically (or digitally, whichever you prefer to call it). Just like an email, an email remains to be digital in nature with no physical form until you had that email printed. But until the printing, does it mean that the email holds no value at all? Of course not, right?

Thus, i do believe that bitcoin is more than what you think of it. It is not zero value. It has its own purchasing power.

E-mail has value because it contains information about some aspect of reality i.e. it provides the answer to a question of some kind or resolves uncertainty. Bitcoin has zero value because it is just empty number connected to the addresses, it is just numerical symbols that point to nothing in the real world. Numerical symbols are valueless on their own. "45437368752737"  - I just created numerical symbols out of thin air.  Do they have value? Of course not. "11" - my computer just find this symbols via brute-force i.e. by spending energy. Did this gave these symbols value? Of course not - they are still just symbols in a memory. If I give name to them, for. e.g.  - XYZCoin, does this make them valuable? Of course not - naming something doesn't change its properties. Now, if I write them down into some database ("XYZ blockchain"), and connect them to some address(name): "John - 11", because John gave me 1,000,000 US Dollars, does that mean that two bytes stored in memory have value of a house. Of course not, these bytes are just as worthless as before  - their properties didn't change just because John did something. By connecting them to "John" we simply marked the fact that John gave me 1,000,000 US Dollars for free. We could also mark this event with symbols "John  - STUPID". Nothing would change. Symbols would stay symbols i.e. linguistic or mathematical objects with zero value.

And are not paper bills just the same? It is just a piece of paper with denoting values printed on it. Not until unless the government state otherwise that the paper bill is to be accepted with the amount printed on it, the paper bill remains of no value.

Just as gold. What gives gold its value? What can gold be formed into that silver could not? Or even stainless steel, a much cheaper alternative. Yet gold is more valuable than its competitors. Why? Because people gives value unto it.

And it is the same with bitcoin. People gives value to it. And again, how could something of no value provide purchasing power? Perhaps your argument was true until bitcoin proved to the world its worth.

[kokobaba880]

There is no proof for the bitcoin and it is impossible that we should judge the crypto and bitcoin is not a value less currency and if some one make an observation that will be just illusion not not fact that shows actual value of bitcoin.

[CoinCodex]

Here is an example that points otherwise, a fast read about the upcoming institutional-grade Bitcoin trading platform!

https://coincodex.com/article/2359/bakkt-ceo-elaborates-on-platforms-vision/

[fxsurfer]

And it is also an oxymoron to state that a bitcoin worth US $6K has a zero value, don't you think otherwise?

What happened here is that you talked about physicality. An iphone is a cellphone, a US Dollar is a paper bill and IBM Shares are bond or equity that is with proofing of a certificate or something to that effect.

It is for this mere reason that you based your assumption that bitcoin has zero value. And truly, bitcoin has no physical form simply because it was designed electronically (or digitally, whichever you prefer to call it). Just like an email, an email remains to be digital in nature with no physical form until you had that email printed. But until the printing, does it mean that the email holds no value at all? Of course not, right?

Thus, i do believe that bitcoin is more than what you think of it. It is not zero value. It has its own purchasing power.

E-mail has value because it contains information about some aspect of reality i.e. it provides the answer to a question of some kind or resolves uncertainty. Bitcoin has zero value because it is just empty number connected to the addresses, it is just numerical symbols that point to nothing in the real world. Numerical symbols are valueless on their own. "45437368752737"  - I just created numerical symbols out of thin air.  Do they have value? Of course not. "11" - my computer just find this symbols via brute-force i.e. by spending energy. Did this gave these symbols value? Of course not - they are still just symbols in a memory. If I give name to them, for. e.g.  - XYZCoin, does this make them valuable? Of course not - naming something doesn't change its properties. Now, if I write them down into some database ("XYZ blockchain"), and connect them to some address(name): "John - 11", because John gave me 1,000,000 US Dollars, does that mean that two bytes stored in memory have value of a house. Of course not, these bytes are just as worthless as before  - their properties didn't change just because John did something. By connecting them to "John" we simply marked the fact that John gave me 1,000,000 US Dollars for free. We could also mark this event with symbols "John  - STUPID". Nothing would change. Symbols would stay symbols i.e. linguistic or mathematical objects with zero value.

And are not paper bills just the same? It is just a piece of paper with denoting values printed on it. Not until unless the government state otherwise that the paper bill is to be accepted with the amount printed on it, the paper bill remains of no value.

Just as gold. What gives gold its value? What can gold be formed into that silver could not? Or even stainless steel, a much cheaper alternative. Yet gold is more valuable than its competitors. Why? Because people gives value unto it.

And it is the same with bitcoin. People gives value to it. And again, how could something of no value provide purchasing power? Perhaps your argument was true until bitcoin proved to the world its worth.

From the premises: people give value to things and bitcoin is a thing, it does not follow: bitcoin has value. Nobody can give value to something that has no capacity to hold value. In principle, anything that has value on its own, i.e. that has practical utility, can hold value. For example, a toothpick. Although the intrinsic value of a toothpick is very small it is not zero since a toothpick has practical utility. That is why a toothpick has capacity to hold value. But bitcoin is a number, and numbers are abstract mathematical entities that can only express values of other things, for e.g. in the form of ratio between X toothpicks to one iPhone, but numbers cannot in principle hold value on their own. Thus, it is true that people give value to things, but this has nothing to do with bitcoin.

Like I have already said, bitcoin is nothing but a numerical mark that someone gave his possessions for free.

[Asawakobana2017]

There is no proof for the bitcoin and it is impossible that we should judge the crypto and bitcoin is not a value less currency and if some one make an observation that will be just illusion not not fact that shows actual value of bitcoin.

Will bitcoin today has a value and I think it will never fall into zero value, because it has now an amazing price, if we are in dip today maybe tommorow or in the next months or year we are on pump status crypto is unstable. So there is a posibility to rise or maybe fall depending on the volume of investors on the feild.

[fxsurfer]

There is no proof for the bitcoin and it is impossible that we should judge the crypto and bitcoin is not a value less currency and if some one make an observation that will be just illusion not not fact that shows actual value of bitcoin.

Will bitcoin today has a value and I think it will never fall into zero value, because it has now an amazing price, if we are in dip today maybe tommorow or in the next months or year we are on pump status crypto is unstable. So there is a posibility to rise or maybe fall depending on the volume of investors on the feild.

Bitcoin never had, nor ever will have value. What you see on the exchanges is not value but letters and numbers, something like this: BTC/USD 6,352.02. Value of bitcoin has always been zero, i.e. numbers that you see are not quantifiers of value but marks of events where people give their possessions for free. In the legitimate market, like EUR/USD for e.g., number 1.1700 quantifies the value of claims derived from loan created money in the US in terms of claims derived from loan created money in the EU. So, we have ratio between two things (claims) with value of their own and number is only expression of that ratio. But in the case of BTC/USD, number 6,325.02 does not represent the ratio between two values, since bitcoin is a number and numbers cannot have value on their own. For that reason 6,325.02 is nothing but a numerical mark of the fact that currently, people are willing to throw away 6,325.02 US dollars for the alteration of worthless number in publicly distributed database. And this is stupidity on a scale never seen in human history.

[oriontab]

The same argument used against bitcoin in this case can also be used against every other items on the list, the USD as some printed pieces of paper that are worthless unless people say it is, for example it is worthless to some locals in some remote part of the World, an iPhone can be valued as some child's toy which will be of no use to an adult.The concept of intrinsic value is only useful when there is a need to be satisfied.

[fxsurfer]

The same argument used against bitcoin in this case can also be used against every other items on the list, the USD as some printed pieces of paper that are worthless unless people say it is, for example it is worthless to some locals in some remote part of the World, an iPhone can be valued as some child's toy which will be of no use to an adult.The concept of intrinsic value is only useful when there is a need to be satisfied.

USD is not pinted piece of paper. USD is claim derived for debt and backed by some form of collateral (land, car, home or borrower’s income). Paper is just a medium upon which numerical information about claim size is stored. This has nothing to do with what "people say." Comparing bitcoin to dollar is like comparing dirt to Ferrari.

[Perunex]

There is no proof for the bitcoin and it is impossible that we should judge the crypto and bitcoin is not a value less currency and if some one make an observation that will be just illusion not not fact that shows actual value of bitcoin.

Will bitcoin today has a value and I think it will never fall into zero value, because it has now an amazing price, if we are in dip today maybe tommorow or in the next months or year we are on pump status crypto is unstable. So there is a posibility to rise or maybe fall depending on the volume of investors on the feild.

Bitcoin never had, nor ever will have value. What you see on the exchanges is not value but letters and numbers, something like this: BTC/USD 6,352.02. Value of bitcoin has always been zero, i.e. numbers that you see are not quantifiers of value but marks of events where people give their possessions for free. In the legitimate market, like EUR/USD for e.g., number 1.1700 quantifies the value of claims derived from loan created money in the US in terms of claims derived from loan created money in the EU. So, we have ratio between two things (claims) with value of their own and number is only expression of that ratio. But in the case of BTC/USD, number 6,325.02 does not represent ratio between two values, since bitcoin is a number and numbers cannot have value on their own. For that reason 6,325.02 is nothing but a numerical mark of the fact that currently, people are willing to throw away 6,325.02 US dollars for the alteration of worthless number in publicly distributed database. And this is stupidity on a scale never seen in human history.

Your understanding of the global economy and global banking system is poor.
USD is not "loan created money". FED has not borrowed money from aliens or Illuminati to loan it forward to business banks. It printed it - created it from thin air. And the EUR/USD is not a ratio between "claims" to loans in respective currencies. That ratio is derived absolutely and only from supply and demand of each currency for another. The same goes for BTC/USD.

You haven't defined a term "value", as interpretations I think are clashing. In your case it definitely isn't a thing of supply and demand - like in neoliberal capitalism.

Does Ethereum as a network have value? If not, does Uber or Airbnb or Reddit have value and why?

[IndigoRed]

You have to realize that in 21th century virtual things have value too, it's part of real world. Bitcoin is as usable as paper notes you have in pocket. You just transfer that notes into bitcoin and oppositely, transfer bitcoins into notes. Bitcoin isn't like an air, it has it's advantages to mine so it's not freely created, something was wasted for it and it's electricity + components of equipment.

Exactly. Bitcoin isn’t like air. That fact that bitcoin has been successfully used for the exchange of goods and services proves it has value. And bitcoin ATMs won’t be popping up around the world if it had zero value. The fact that something is digital and not tangible doesn’t mean it’s not real.

[halfmil]

The value of anything is subjective. Ask 1000 different people what they think a bitcoin is worth and get 1000 different answers. You see to some people Bitcoin is worth zero because they either don’t care about it or don’t want to use it or maybe even know anything about it. To some people bitcoin is very valuable. It would depend on who you are asking. Everything is only worth what someone else will pay for it. There is no such thing as absolute value. To some people gold and diamonds are just shiny rocks. What is the dollar value you would put on love or a friendship? What is your pet dog or cat worth? What is your time worth? What is your car worth? These questions all have very different answers depending on who you are talking to because value is subjective not objective.

[killat]

On that principle all the money is essentially "zero value". Crypto, old school dollars whatever.

None of it is real because it is based on nothing of substance. Gold is locked away in the US vaults never to come out and is not big enough to back everyone's money. The Britsh Pound? Equated to one pound of gold once.

Now if you ask for your gold back from The USA you get invaded and deposed ... Gradafi, Sadam etc.

So, just because Bitcoin is a bit flimsy? It matter not.

As long as people honour it's value through services good etc ... Who cares?

Now, if they stop hooping it? That is a different story.

[letecia012]

I dis agree what the thread starter want to emphasize the three first example is way different from the fourth or the Bitcoin. As the first three represent physical ownership of things or items while Bitcoin is a digital currency and it only exist in internet world. The value could be created by people who patronizing an item or a coins and that is the law  of demand and supply. While there are lot of buyer than seller of Bitcoin it's price may continue to go up or vice versa.

[fxsurfer]

There is no proof for the bitcoin and it is impossible that we should judge the crypto and bitcoin is not a value less currency and if some one make an observation that will be just illusion not not fact that shows actual value of bitcoin.

Will bitcoin today has a value and I think it will never fall into zero value, because it has now an amazing price, if we are in dip today maybe tommorow or in the next months or year we are on pump status crypto is unstable. So there is a posibility to rise or maybe fall depending on the volume of investors on the feild.

Bitcoin never had, nor ever will have value. What you see on the exchanges is not value but letters and numbers, something like this: BTC/USD 6,352.02. Value of bitcoin has always been zero, i.e. numbers that you see are not quantifiers of value but marks of events where people give their possessions for free. In the legitimate market, like EUR/USD for e.g., number 1.1700 quantifies the value of claims derived from loan created money in the US in terms of claims derived from loan created money in the EU. So, we have ratio between two things (claims) with value of their own and number is only expression of that ratio. But in the case of BTC/USD, number 6,325.02 does not represent ratio between two values, since bitcoin is a number and numbers cannot have value on their own. For that reason 6,325.02 is nothing but a numerical mark of the fact that currently, people are willing to throw away 6,325.02 US dollars for the alteration of worthless number in publicly distributed database. And this is stupidity on a scale never seen in human history.

Your understanding of the global economy and global banking system is poor.
USD is not "loan created money". FED has not borrowed money from aliens or Illuminati to loan it forward to business banks. It printed it - created it from thin air. And the EUR/USD is not a ratio between "claims" to loans in respective currencies. That ratio is derived absolutely and only from supply and demand of each currency for another. The same goes for BTC/USD.

You haven't defined a term "value", as interpretations I think are clashing. In your case it definitely isn't a thing of supply and demand - like in neoliberal capitalism.

Does Ethereum as a network have value? If not, does Uber or Airbnb or Reddit have value and why?

Well, you have just demonstrated that it is you whose understanding of the global economy and global banking system is poor.

First, FED doesn't create money. FED creates paper proof or certificate of money. Banks on the other hand create digital proof or certificate of money. So neither the FED nor the banks create money. Money is essentially created by borrowers, i.e. without the borrowers there would be no money, except commodity money - whose value comes from a commodity of which it is made.

In other words, when a bank creates numbers out of thin air by giving someone a loan, the bank didn't create money, but worthless symbols. Only when the borrower takes liability to return the loan and when this liability is secured by some form of collateral, only then "numbers" are put into circulation and only then money (fiat money) is created.
When FED (FOMC) buys government securities then the government is the borrower that takes "liability to return the loan". And this loan is secured by taxing power of the government.

Now, does that look like bitcoin to you?

Second, supply is a concept that describes the total amount of a specific good or service that is available to consumers, while demand is a consumer's desire and willingness to pay a price for a specific good or service. In other words, the supply and demand for a good vary, while value of a good is stable irrespective of these two concepts. For e.g. usability and other properties of iPhone won't change if you are not willing to buy it. Thus, value is something that is inherent to a thing and what doesn't change with supply and demand. Price is what changes in that regard.  

[fxsurfer]

The value of anything is subjective. Ask 1000 different people what they think a bitcoin is worth and get 1000 different answers. You see to some people Bitcoin is worth zero because they either don’t care about it or don’t want to use it or maybe even know anything about it. To some people bitcoin is very valuable. It would depend on who you are asking. Everything is only worth what someone else will pay for it. There is no such thing as absolute value. To some people gold and diamonds are just shiny rocks. What is the dollar value you would put on love or a friendship? What is your pet dog or cat worth? What is your time worth? What is your car worth? These questions all have very different answers depending on who you are talking to because value is subjective not objective.

It is mind blowing how you people are poorly educated. The value is NOT subjective. The value of a thing is its ability to provide some utility. The utility of an engine is its ability to perform function - to convert one form of energy into mechanical energy. Now, is the ability to convert energy subjective? Of course, not. That is why if you ask 1000 different people whether a car engine can convert energy you won't get 1000 different answers.

The utility of a heart is its ability to pump blood to the organs and tissues of your body that need the oxygen and nutrients it carries. Now, is this ability subjective? Of course, not.

The utility of fiat money is its ability to provide its owner with assets of the banks or with property of borrowers. And this is also not subjective but legally enforceable, formally recorded in the balance sheets of the banks, and confirmed every time when a borrower if forced to give his property, goods or services to fiat money owners in order to get funds for his loan payments.

Bitcoin on the other hand has no utility, as it is just a byte in a memory.

[dohh]

The value of anything is subjective. Ask 1000 different people what they think a bitcoin is worth and get 1000 different answers. You see to some people Bitcoin is worth zero because they either don’t care about it or don’t want to use it or maybe even know anything about it. To some people bitcoin is very valuable. It would depend on who you are asking. Everything is only worth what someone else will pay for it. There is no such thing as absolute value. To some people gold and diamonds are just shiny rocks. What is the dollar value you would put on love or a friendship? What is your pet dog or cat worth? What is your time worth? What is your car worth? These questions all have very different answers depending on who you are talking to because value is subjective not objective.

It is mind blowing how you people are poorly educated. The value is NOT subjective. The value of a thing is its ability to provide some utility. The utility of an engine is its ability to perform function - to convert one form of energy into mechanical energy. Now, is the ability to convert energy subjective? Of course, not. That is why if you ask 1000 different people whether a car engine can convert energy you won't get 1000 different answers.

The utility of a heart is its ability to pump blood to the organs and tissues of your body that need the oxygen and nutrients it carries. Now, is this ability subjective? Of course, not.

The utility of fiat money is its ability to provide its owner with assets of the banks or with property of borrowers. And this is also not subjective but legally enforceable, formally recorded in the balance sheets of the banks, and confirmed every time when a borrower if forced to give his property, goods or services to fiat money owners in order to get funds for his loan payments.

Bitcoin on the other hand has no utility, as it is just a byte in a memory.

You are the poorly educated one. Instead of admitting, that Your initial logic was faulted, You keep digging Yourself deeper in, with even more broken logic. I wonder, how much more of it can You produce...

Just to use Your own words: if value is "a things ability to provide some utility." its is subjective already by Your own definition. Pair of classes wear good value for shortsighted, I dont give a shite. They are not valuable for me. Insulin pump has lifesaving value for diabetic, no value at all to me.

And Your own engine/value sample: some people value more powerful engines, some economic. Even this ability is not valued identically between individuals. How can You be, to not understand that??

[fxsurfer]

The value of anything is subjective. Ask 1000 different people what they think a bitcoin is worth and get 1000 different answers. You see to some people Bitcoin is worth zero because they either don’t care about it or don’t want to use it or maybe even know anything about it. To some people bitcoin is very valuable. It would depend on who you are asking. Everything is only worth what someone else will pay for it. There is no such thing as absolute value. To some people gold and diamonds are just shiny rocks. What is the dollar value you would put on love or a friendship? What is your pet dog or cat worth? What is your time worth? What is your car worth? These questions all have very different answers depending on who you are talking to because value is subjective not objective.

It is mind blowing how you people are poorly educated. The value is NOT subjective. The value of a thing is its ability to provide some utility. The utility of an engine is its ability to perform function - to convert one form of energy into mechanical energy. Now, is the ability to convert energy subjective? Of course, not. That is why if you ask 1000 different people whether a car engine can convert energy you won't get 1000 different answers.

The utility of a heart is its ability to pump blood to the organs and tissues of your body that need the oxygen and nutrients it carries. Now, is this ability subjective? Of course, not.

The utility of fiat money is its ability to provide its owner with assets of the banks or with property of borrowers. And this is also not subjective but legally enforceable, formally recorded in the balance sheets of the banks, and confirmed every time when a borrower if forced to give his property, goods or services to fiat money owners in order to get funds for his loan payments.

Bitcoin on the other hand has no utility, as it is just a byte in a memory.

You are the poorly educated one. Instead of admitting, that Your initial logic was faulted, You keep digging Yourself deeper in, with even more broken logic. I wonder, how much more of it can You produce...

Just to use Your own words: if value is "a things ability to provide some utility." its is subjective already by Your own definition. Pair of classes wear good value for shortsighted, I dont give a shite. They are not valuable for me. Insulin pump has lifesaving value for diabetic, no value at all to me.

And Your own engine/value sample: some people value more powerful engines, some economic. Even this ability is not valued identically between individuals. How can You be, to not understand that??

This is not value of a thing, but your personal need or willingness to use it. By your logic insulin is valueless because you don't need it. Glasses are valueless because you are not shortsighted. Some people don't use cars. So, cars are valueless. Your logic is obviously nonsensical. Utility or value of a thing is not defined by personal preferences of people but by its ability to either, perform function for which it was designed or satisfy human wants or needs. In that sense only bitcoin is entirely valueless. It is just a byte in a memory and as such it can neither perform some function nor satisfy human wants or needs.

[halfmil]

The value of anything is subjective. Ask 1000 different people what they think a bitcoin is worth and get 1000 different answers. You see to some people Bitcoin is worth zero because they either don’t care about it or don’t want to use it or maybe even know anything about it. To some people bitcoin is very valuable. It would depend on who you are asking. Everything is only worth what someone else will pay for it. There is no such thing as absolute value. To some people gold and diamonds are just shiny rocks. What is the dollar value you would put on love or a friendship? What is your pet dog or cat worth? What is your time worth? What is your car worth? These questions all have very different answers depending on who you are talking to because value is subjective not objective.

It is mind blowing how you people are poorly educated. The value is NOT subjective. The value of a thing is its ability to provide some utility. The utility of an engine is its ability to perform function - to convert one form of energy into mechanical energy. Now, is the ability to convert energy subjective? Of course, not. That is why if you ask 1000 different people whether a car engine can convert energy you won't get 1000 different answers.

The utility of a heart is its ability to pump blood to the organs and tissues of your body that need the oxygen and nutrients it carries. Now, is this ability subjective? Of course, not.

The utility of fiat money is its ability to provide its owner with assets of the banks or with property of borrowers. And this is also not subjective but legally enforceable, formally recorded in the balance sheets of the banks, and confirmed every time when a borrower if forced to give his property, goods or services to fiat money owners in order to get funds for his loan payments.

Bitcoin on the other hand has no utility, as it is just a byte in a memory.

Don't hurt your mind to much thinking about it. What is really amusing to me is that even though elitist like you have wasted a lot of their life learning facts in higher education they still need poorly educated people like me to school you on what value is.

If "the value of a thing is it's ability to provide some utility" and value is not subjective please tell me what makes a painting or artwork valuable. Why is some art worth nothing and some paintings are worth a million dollars?

Do you really think everyone on this planet values their heart exactly the same even as a utility? There are people on this earth that have some serious problems and are in traumatic consent pain they can only pray and hope that their heart gives out so they may die because that's what they want.

Is an engines sole purpose to convert energy into mechanical energy? Are there not old steam, airplane, and motorcycle engines in museums on display strictly for their design and aesthetic features? Value is always a utility? Is everyone's time worth exactly the same? Is everyone's love and friendship the same?

I don't think the question here is does the heart pump blood or an engine make mechanical power. Of corse it does. Are these things utilities, yes and they are also other things besides utilities. What I am saying here is the value of those things are different to different people and value is subjective not objective. An elitist such as yourself tries to tell people what the value of something is. The truth is you have no say in what is valuable to me or in my life and vice versa.

Values of things are subjective and do not have set prices in which they are worth the same all the time. Even circumstance can make the same item two different prices to the same person.

Bitcoin is worth zero? I'm sorry but this thing you say is worth nothing can buy my airplane ticket to travel across the country so to me it has some value. What you are saying just isn't good enough.

Things need to be utilities for them to have value? Honestly I don't even believe you believe that. I think you are just trying to talk yourself into your weird way of thinking. I'm glad you spent a lot of your time and money going to higher education to learn how to make a simple chart to explain to others the way you think is better then the way they think. I'm happy for you. You have the world figured out. But in all honesty I don't think anyone here really cares and if I were you I'd go get my money back from that fancy college if that's as much critical thinking that they are teaching nowadays.

You do not seem to sure of yourself. Keep trying though, this is a strong subject for such a weak mind.

[Perunex]

There is no proof for the bitcoin and it is impossible that we should judge the crypto and bitcoin is not a value less currency and if some one make an observation that will be just illusion not not fact that shows actual value of bitcoin.

Will bitcoin today has a value and I think it will never fall into zero value, because it has now an amazing price, if we are in dip today maybe tommorow or in the next months or year we are on pump status crypto is unstable. So there is a posibility to rise or maybe fall depending on the volume of investors on the feild.

Bitcoin never had, nor ever will have value. What you see on the exchanges is not value but letters and numbers, something like this: BTC/USD 6,352.02. Value of bitcoin has always been zero, i.e. numbers that you see are not quantifiers of value but marks of events where people give their possessions for free. In the legitimate market, like EUR/USD for e.g., number 1.1700 quantifies the value of claims derived from loan created money in the US in terms of claims derived from loan created money in the EU. So, we have ratio between two things (claims) with value of their own and number is only expression of that ratio. But in the case of BTC/USD, number 6,325.02 does not represent ratio between two values, since bitcoin is a number and numbers cannot have value on their own. For that reason 6,325.02 is nothing but a numerical mark of the fact that currently, people are willing to throw away 6,325.02 US dollars for the alteration of worthless number in publicly distributed database. And this is stupidity on a scale never seen in human history.

Your understanding of the global economy and global banking system is poor.
USD is not "loan created money". FED has not borrowed money from aliens or Illuminati to loan it forward to business banks. It printed it - created it from thin air. And the EUR/USD is not a ratio between "claims" to loans in respective currencies. That ratio is derived absolutely and only from supply and demand of each currency for another. The same goes for BTC/USD.

You haven't defined a term "value", as interpretations I think are clashing. In your case it definitely isn't a thing of supply and demand - like in neoliberal capitalism.

Does Ethereum as a network have value? If not, does Uber or Airbnb or Reddit have value and why?

Well, you have just demonstrated that it is you whose understanding of the global economy and global banking system is poor.

First, FED doesn't create money. FED creates paper proof or certificate of money. Banks on the other hand create digital proof or certificate of money. So neither the FED nor the banks create money. Money is essentially created by borrowers, i.e. without the borrowers there would be no money, except commodity money - whose value comes from a commodity of which it is made.

In other words, when a bank creates numbers out of thin air by giving someone a loan, the bank didn't create money, but worthless symbols. Only when the borrower takes liability to return the loan and when this liability is secured by some form of collateral, only then "numbers" are put into circulation and only then money (fiat money) is created.
When FED (FOMC) buys government securities then the government is the borrower that takes "liability to return the loan". And this loan is secured by taxing power of the government.

Now, does that look like bitcoin to you?

Second, supply is a concept that describes the total amount of a specific good or service that is available to consumers, while demand is a consumer's desire and willingness to pay a price for a specific good or service. In other words, the supply and demand for a good vary, while value of a good is stable irrespective of these two concepts. For e.g. usability and other properties of iPhone won't change if you are not willing to buy it. Thus, value is something that is inherent to a thing and what doesn't change with supply and demand. Price is what changes in that regard.  

How do you mean that bank creates number out of thin air and gives this number to borrower? Bank cannot just create number of thin air, but it needs it to take it from somewhere. From it's asset. It does not have unlimited funds to lend money to borrowers worthy of it. It cannot just create money.

Please explain us your understanding of term "value". In the equilibrium of supply and demand there is an absolute value of a good or service. I.e. the price, basically. And that can be "calculated" only long term.

[fxsurfer]

The value of anything is subjective. Ask 1000 different people what they think a bitcoin is worth and get 1000 different answers. You see to some people Bitcoin is worth zero because they either don’t care about it or don’t want to use it or maybe even know anything about it. To some people bitcoin is very valuable. It would depend on who you are asking. Everything is only worth what someone else will pay for it. There is no such thing as absolute value. To some people gold and diamonds are just shiny rocks. What is the dollar value you would put on love or a friendship? What is your pet dog or cat worth? What is your time worth? What is your car worth? These questions all have very different answers depending on who you are talking to because value is subjective not objective.

It is mind blowing how you people are poorly educated. The value is NOT subjective. The value of a thing is its ability to provide some utility. The utility of an engine is its ability to perform function - to convert one form of energy into mechanical energy. Now, is the ability to convert energy subjective? Of course, not. That is why if you ask 1000 different people whether a car engine can convert energy you won't get 1000 different answers.

The utility of a heart is its ability to pump blood to the organs and tissues of your body that need the oxygen and nutrients it carries. Now, is this ability subjective? Of course, not.

The utility of fiat money is its ability to provide its owner with assets of the banks or with property of borrowers. And this is also not subjective but legally enforceable, formally recorded in the balance sheets of the banks, and confirmed every time when a borrower if forced to give his property, goods or services to fiat money owners in order to get funds for his loan payments.

Bitcoin on the other hand has no utility, as it is just a byte in a memory.

Don't hurt your mind to much thinking about it. What is really amusing to me is that even though elitist like you have wasted a lot of their life learning facts in higher education they still need poorly educated people like me to school you on what value is.

If "the value of a thing is it's ability to provide some utility" and value is not subjective please tell me what makes a painting or artwork valuable. Why is some art worth nothing and some paintings are worth a million dollars?

Do you really think everyone on this planet values their heart exactly the same even as a utility? There are people on this earth that have some serious problems and are in traumatic consent pain they can only pray and hope that their heart gives out so they may die because that's what they want.

Is an engines sole purpose to convert energy into mechanical energy? Are there not old steam, airplane, and motorcycle engines in museums on display strictly for their design and aesthetic features? Value is always a utility? Is everyone's time worth exactly the same? Is everyone's love and friendship the same?

I don't think the question here is does the heart pump blood or an engine make mechanical power. Of corse it does. Are these things utilities, yes and they are also other things besides utilities. What I am saying here is the value of those things are different to different people and value is subjective not objective. An elitist such as yourself tries to tell people what the value of something is. The truth is you have no say in what is valuable to me or in my life and vice versa.

Values of things are subjective and do not have set prices in which they are worth the same all the time. Even circumstance can make the same item two different prices to the same person.

Bitcoin is worth zero? I'm sorry but this thing you say is worth nothing can buy my airplane ticket to travel across the country so to me it has some value. What you are saying just isn't good enough.

Things need to be utilities for them to have value? Honestly I don't even believe you believe that. I think you are just trying to talk yourself into your weird way of thinking. I'm glad you spent a lot of your time and money going to higher education to learn how to make a simple chart to explain to others the way you think is better then the way they think. I'm happy for you. You have the world figured out. But in all honesty I don't think anyone here really cares and if I were you I'd go get my money back from that fancy college if that's as much critical thinking that they are teaching nowadays.

You do not seem to sure of yourself. Keep trying though, this is a strong subject for such a weak mind.

You haven't schooled me, you just repeated the same nonsense I already refuted.

Painting is valuable because it provides a perceptual experience of satisfaction or pleasure. Pleasure is a mental state that humans experience as positive, enjoyable, or worth seeking. Or put simply, pleasure is a human need, it drives us, the way hunger does or fear. That is why painting is valuable - its inherent properties are able to satisfy human needs. Now, the degree to which something is experienced as pleasurable, together with someone's wealth, determine how much someone is willing to pay for it. Thus, value is objective since it is inherent to a picture, while price is subjective since it is inherent to a person.

Inherent property of a dollar is its claim status, which can ultimately provide its holder with goods, services or property of borrowers. And it is this inherent property what makes dollar valuable.

Even a rock, due to its inherent property of hardness, is valuable  - it can be used as a weapon and save human life in some circumstances. In that case, a person might pay a million dollars for it.

But, can for e.g. a particle which comprises a rock be used to save human life? No. Can it be used to satisfy other human needs? No. That is why this particle is valueless. Simply put, its inherent properties cannot provide utility to people. The same is true for Bitcoin. It is a number, it is an abstract mathematical object, it is mere byte in a memory whose inherent properties cannot provide utility to people. That is why it is valueless.

[dohh]

“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.” G. Carlin.

[gesdan]

i have a theory that all thing that in the world is have the zero values at the beginning, but we can see that the demand and the stock of that thing is not stable, sometimes the stock is low and sometimes the stock is high, it is makes the value of that things is always changes every time

[fxsurfer]

There is no proof for the bitcoin and it is impossible that we should judge the crypto and bitcoin is not a value less currency and if some one make an observation that will be just illusion not not fact that shows actual value of bitcoin.

Will bitcoin today has a value and I think it will never fall into zero value, because it has now an amazing price, if we are in dip today maybe tommorow or in the next months or year we are on pump status crypto is unstable. So there is a posibility to rise or maybe fall depending on the volume of investors on the feild.

Bitcoin never had, nor ever will have value. What you see on the exchanges is not value but letters and numbers, something like this: BTC/USD 6,352.02. Value of bitcoin has always been zero, i.e. numbers that you see are not quantifiers of value but marks of events where people give their possessions for free. In the legitimate market, like EUR/USD for e.g., number 1.1700 quantifies the value of claims derived from loan created money in the US in terms of claims derived from loan created money in the EU. So, we have ratio between two things (claims) with value of their own and number is only expression of that ratio. But in the case of BTC/USD, number 6,325.02 does not represent ratio between two values, since bitcoin is a number and numbers cannot have value on their own. For that reason 6,325.02 is nothing but a numerical mark of the fact that currently, people are willing to throw away 6,325.02 US dollars for the alteration of worthless number in publicly distributed database. And this is stupidity on a scale never seen in human history.

Your understanding of the global economy and global banking system is poor.
USD is not "loan created money". FED has not borrowed money from aliens or Illuminati to loan it forward to business banks. It printed it - created it from thin air. And the EUR/USD is not a ratio between "claims" to loans in respective currencies. That ratio is derived absolutely and only from supply and demand of each currency for another. The same goes for BTC/USD.

You haven't defined a term "value", as interpretations I think are clashing. In your case it definitely isn't a thing of supply and demand - like in neoliberal capitalism.

Does Ethereum as a network have value? If not, does Uber or Airbnb or Reddit have value and why?

Well, you have just demonstrated that it is you whose understanding of the global economy and global banking system is poor.

First, FED doesn't create money. FED creates paper proof or certificate of money. Banks on the other hand create digital proof or certificate of money. So neither the FED nor the banks create money. Money is essentially created by borrowers, i.e. without the borrowers there would be no money, except commodity money - whose value comes from a commodity of which it is made.

In other words, when a bank creates numbers out of thin air by giving someone a loan, the bank didn't create money, but worthless symbols. Only when the borrower takes liability to return the loan and when this liability is secured by some form of collateral, only then "numbers" are put into circulation and only then money (fiat money) is created.
When FED (FOMC) buys government securities then the government is the borrower that takes "liability to return the loan". And this loan is secured by taxing power of the government.

Now, does that look like bitcoin to you?

Second, supply is a concept that describes the total amount of a specific good or service that is available to consumers, while demand is a consumer's desire and willingness to pay a price for a specific good or service. In other words, the supply and demand for a good vary, while value of a good is stable irrespective of these two concepts. For e.g. usability and other properties of iPhone won't change if you are not willing to buy it. Thus, value is something that is inherent to a thing and what doesn't change with supply and demand. Price is what changes in that regard.  

How do you mean that bank creates number out of thin air and gives this number to borrower? Bank cannot just create number of thin air, but it needs it to take it from somewhere. From it's asset. It does not have unlimited funds to lend money to borrowers worthy of it. It cannot just create money.

Please explain us your understanding of term "value". In the equilibrium of supply and demand there is an absolute value of a good or service. I.e. the price, basically. And that can be "calculated" only long term.

A bank indeed creates numbers out of thin air since they are just ... numbers, and there is no other way to create them. What the bank must take from somewhere is liability, or in other words, a person that will take liability to return numbers to the bank and offer some collateral for that. Numbers are just means to express the size of this liability and of course they are created out of thin air.

I explained the term "value" in the post above.

[Camilla Gill]

Bitcoin has value, because a lot of resources must be spent (hardware, electricity and bandwidth) to mine Bitcoins. Gold and Silver are unfounded but they have value, because it’s difficult to be found and mined. The same applies to Bitcoin. Bitcoin has unique features, so people want it, and they pay for it.

So, Bitcoin HAS value. Countries tolerate Bitcoin, because they know that it has value, and it’s not a scam.

[pitiflin]

Just as every database, this database is an organized collection of data which provides information about some aspect of reality, in this case the ownership of things. Alice, Bob, Steve and Peter own a specific quantity of iPhones, US Dollars, IBM shares and Bitcoins.

Shares is a piece of paper, bitcoin is a digital currency. What would you say if the person holding US$ is having it stored on PayPal, or if the person having iPhones has 2 iPhones that are non-functioning?

So, Peter owns 2 numbers and Peter owns number 2. But how can someone own a number?

Ever heard of a digital signature? That's how one can prove they own those bitcoins.

Just as every As such, these numbers are valueless on their own, and they can be created out of thin air. On the other hand, electronic devices, borrowers liabilities/collaterals, and company's capital, obviously cannot be created out of thin air. And that is why things (iPhones, US Dollars and IBM Shares) are what have value, not the numbers. Numbers are just symbols that represent/quantify these things and they cannot have value in principle. For e.g. in the case of dollars, it is not the number "20" in the database what Bob owns. He owns a share in the total claims that originated from the total borrowers liabilities. If the total liabilities(debt) in the U.S monetary system is X, Bob owns 20/X of share in claims derived from these liabilities.

You do know that USD is created out of thin air, as in, they are printed limitlessly and yet have people starving to death. Shares and bitcoin, both of their prices are determined by market forces. And shares ARE created out of thin air. Sometimes ownership of a company's capital means nothing.

But, in the case of bitcoin, Peter literally owns number "2" in the database, since bitcoin(entry in column C) is just a fancy name for the number in column B and it represents nothing outside the database itself. So, since bitcoin is a number while numbers are only representations of values that exist outside the database, not only that bitcoin has zero value but the term "bitcoin's value" is an oxymoron.

Bitcoin is not just a number, stop misleading people. Its a currency that has now become more of a speculative asset. Bitcoin has value, like it or not. It is not zero, if it was, nobody would be using it, and nobody would be "hodling" it. No one can explain anything to you,if you live in blindspread ignorance.

[Dylan Bargeman]

No currency has real value anymore. It’s all air. The only difference between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies is that cryptocurrencies works faster, cheaper, is decentralized (no banks needed) and deflationary, instead of the greatest theft in the world: inflation.
Nature will always choose the path of least resistance or the most effective path. The most effective path is cryptocurrencies.

[maskeffec]

I would not say that bitcoin is worthless because of the current decline, because prices for coins are comparable to the technology they have, despite all the negative signs in the crypto currency market, and in general the world has a bad reputation, but Bitcoin is still very valuable compared to coins crypto others.

[Perunex]

There is no proof for the bitcoin and it is impossible that we should judge the crypto and bitcoin is not a value less currency and if some one make an observation that will be just illusion not not fact that shows actual value of bitcoin.

Will bitcoin today has a value and I think it will never fall into zero value, because it has now an amazing price, if we are in dip today maybe tommorow or in the next months or year we are on pump status crypto is unstable. So there is a posibility to rise or maybe fall depending on the volume of investors on the feild.

Bitcoin never had, nor ever will have value. What you see on the exchanges is not value but letters and numbers, something like this: BTC/USD 6,352.02. Value of bitcoin has always been zero, i.e. numbers that you see are not quantifiers of value but marks of events where people give their possessions for free. In the legitimate market, like EUR/USD for e.g., number 1.1700 quantifies the value of claims derived from loan created money in the US in terms of claims derived from loan created money in the EU. So, we have ratio between two things (claims) with value of their own and number is only expression of that ratio. But in the case of BTC/USD, number 6,325.02 does not represent ratio between two values, since bitcoin is a number and numbers cannot have value on their own. For that reason 6,325.02 is nothing but a numerical mark of the fact that currently, people are willing to throw away 6,325.02 US dollars for the alteration of worthless number in publicly distributed database. And this is stupidity on a scale never seen in human history.

Your understanding of the global economy and global banking system is poor.
USD is not "loan created money". FED has not borrowed money from aliens or Illuminati to loan it forward to business banks. It printed it - created it from thin air. And the EUR/USD is not a ratio between "claims" to loans in respective currencies. That ratio is derived absolutely and only from supply and demand of each currency for another. The same goes for BTC/USD.

You haven't defined a term "value", as interpretations I think are clashing. In your case it definitely isn't a thing of supply and demand - like in neoliberal capitalism.

Does Ethereum as a network have value? If not, does Uber or Airbnb or Reddit have value and why?

Well, you have just demonstrated that it is you whose understanding of the global economy and global banking system is poor.

First, FED doesn't create money. FED creates paper proof or certificate of money. Banks on the other hand create digital proof or certificate of money. So neither the FED nor the banks create money. Money is essentially created by borrowers, i.e. without the borrowers there would be no money, except commodity money - whose value comes from a commodity of which it is made.

In other words, when a bank creates numbers out of thin air by giving someone a loan, the bank didn't create money, but worthless symbols. Only when the borrower takes liability to return the loan and when this liability is secured by some form of collateral, only then "numbers" are put into circulation and only then money (fiat money) is created.
When FED (FOMC) buys government securities then the government is the borrower that takes "liability to return the loan". And this loan is secured by taxing power of the government.

Now, does that look like bitcoin to you?

Second, supply is a concept that describes the total amount of a specific good or service that is available to consumers, while demand is a consumer's desire and willingness to pay a price for a specific good or service. In other words, the supply and demand for a good vary, while value of a good is stable irrespective of these two concepts. For e.g. usability and other properties of iPhone won't change if you are not willing to buy it. Thus, value is something that is inherent to a thing and what doesn't change with supply and demand. Price is what changes in that regard.  

How do you mean that bank creates number out of thin air and gives this number to borrower? Bank cannot just create number of thin air, but it needs it to take it from somewhere. From it's asset. It does not have unlimited funds to lend money to borrowers worthy of it. It cannot just create money.

Please explain us your understanding of term "value". In the equilibrium of supply and demand there is an absolute value of a good or service. I.e. the price, basically. And that can be "calculated" only long term.

A bank indeed creates numbers out of thin air since they are just ... numbers, and there is no other way to create them. What the bank must take from somewhere is liability, or in other words, a person that will take liability to return numbers to the bank and offer some collateral for that. Numbers are just means to express the size of this liability and of course they are created out of thin air.

I explained the term "value" in the post above.

But these numbers that banks "create out of thin air" and take liabilities from people (in our case) with collateral needs to be transferred from somewhere. From its asset side - double entry bookkeeping. In other words, if a small bank which assets are 1 mil USD and 100 people want 100 mil USD loan (they want to take the liability) with a sufficient collateral, this small banks cannot provide the loans for them. They cannot create a number out of thin air and forward that number to these people that want the loan (and have a good collateral to get it), simply because it does not have the assets or funds to do that.

Does a airbnb platform have value? And I mean just the platform itself, without the company behind it, without the real estates which are on the platform. The platform itself is only bunch of numbers and other data.

[imutzz]

Dang it read 4 pages just to realize op is just trolling around, I don't even consider him serious anymore. many people already explained to him in so many ways that even beginners can understand and he just refuses to accept the fact.

[Perunex]

Dang it read 4 pages just to realize op is just trolling around, I don't even consider him serious anymore. many people already explained to him in so many ways that even beginners can understand and he just refuses to accept the fact.

Actually, I am not sure he is just trolling. He has a solid, veeeery theoretical point. Imo, we are just abstractly, in theory, talking about "value" in general and bitcoin. In practice this debate is actually quite meaningless. It is still imo interesting debate.

[pawel7777]

...
Actually, I am not sure he is just trolling. He has a solid, veeeery theoretical point. Imo, we are just abstractly, in theory, talking about "value" in general and bitcoin. In practice this debate is actually quite meaningless. It is still imo interesting debate.

I know OP from his other threads. Sometimes he is thought-provoking, I'll give him that, but usually he would just waffle around good old "bitcoin is worthless because it has no intrinsic value" rhetoric, acting like he has come up with something new.

In this thread he attempts to re-define the meaning of the word "value" to fit his narrative. I don't think there's a single country in the world that would allow you not to pay taxes on otherwise taxable income just because you take bitcoin as a payment, or allow you to hide your wealth in bitcoin from wife you're divorcing - because it has no value, right?
Any sensible person would rather adjust his definitions to be compatible with the rest of the world - but that wouldn't earn him 5 pages of replies.

[squatter]

Dang it read 4 pages just to realize op is just trolling around, I don't even consider him serious anymore. many people already explained to him in so many ways that even beginners can understand and he just refuses to accept the fact.

Actually, I am not sure he is just trolling. He has a solid, veeeery theoretical point. Imo, we are just abstractly, in theory, talking about "value" in general and bitcoin. In practice this debate is actually quite meaningless. It is still imo interesting debate.

It's interesting for a moment, until you realize that the entire debate hinges on the OP's rigid and arbitrary definitions of "value." He keeps changing the definition of "value" to fit his narrative, and his definitions are completely out of touch with society's. It's a futile exercise to argue against this kind of logic. He may not be intentionally trolling, but his approach is intellectually dishonest.

[zhelis74]

Dang it read 4 pages just to realize op is just trolling around, I don't even consider him serious anymore. many people already explained to him in so many ways that even beginners can understand and he just refuses to accept the fact.

Actually, I am not sure he is just trolling. He has a solid, veeeery theoretical point. Imo, we are just abstractly, in theory, talking about "value" in general and bitcoin. In practice this debate is actually quite meaningless. It is still imo interesting debate.

Yes, he was trying to figure out a philosophical means of logical ideas but it should have not be calculated like that,  he wants to proved that bitcoin is just a number but didn't elaborate that the digital number itself has an equivament value of that real currency. So if I have 2 bitcoins then I will buy many iphones and make it included to its computation.

[bloodyvio]

Dang it read 4 pages just to realize op is just trolling around, I don't even consider him serious anymore. many people already explained to him in so many ways that even beginners can understand and he just refuses to accept the fact.

Actually, I am not sure he is just trolling. He has a solid, veeeery theoretical point. Imo, we are just abstractly, in theory, talking about "value" in general and bitcoin. In practice this debate is actually quite meaningless. It is still imo interesting debate.

Yes, he was trying to figure out a philosophical means of logical ideas but it should have not be calculated like that,  he wants to proved that bitcoin is just a number but didn't elaborate that the digital number itself has an equivament value of that real currency. So if I have 2 bitcoins then I will buy many iphones and make it included to its computation.

he forgot about doing POW on a bitcoin network that requires a lot of money, costs to ensure the data flow remains safe
and this keep increase every day, as Franky1 explained on page one

[halfmil]

The value of anything is subjective. Ask 1000 different people what they think a bitcoin is worth and get 1000 different answers. You see to some people Bitcoin is worth zero because they either don’t care about it or don’t want to use it or maybe even know anything about it. To some people bitcoin is very valuable. It would depend on who you are asking. Everything is only worth what someone else will pay for it. There is no such thing as absolute value. To some people gold and diamonds are just shiny rocks. What is the dollar value you would put on love or a friendship? What is your pet dog or cat worth? What is your time worth? What is your car worth? These questions all have very different answers depending on who you are talking to because value is subjective not objective.

It is mind blowing how you people are poorly educated. The value is NOT subjective. The value of a thing is its ability to provide some utility. The utility of an engine is its ability to perform function - to convert one form of energy into mechanical energy. Now, is the ability to convert energy subjective? Of course, not. That is why if you ask 1000 different people whether a car engine can convert energy you won't get 1000 different answers.

The utility of a heart is its ability to pump blood to the organs and tissues of your body that need the oxygen and nutrients it carries. Now, is this ability subjective? Of course, not.

The utility of fiat money is its ability to provide its owner with assets of the banks or with property of borrowers. And this is also not subjective but legally enforceable, formally recorded in the balance sheets of the banks, and confirmed every time when a borrower if forced to give his property, goods or services to fiat money owners in order to get funds for his loan payments.

Bitcoin on the other hand has no utility, as it is just a byte in a memory.

Don't hurt your mind to much thinking about it. What is really amusing to me is that even though elitist like you have wasted a lot of their life learning facts in higher education they still need poorly educated people like me to school you on what value is.

If "the value of a thing is it's ability to provide some utility" and value is not subjective please tell me what makes a painting or artwork valuable. Why is some art worth nothing and some paintings are worth a million dollars?

Do you really think everyone on this planet values their heart exactly the same even as a utility? There are people on this earth that have some serious problems and are in traumatic consent pain they can only pray and hope that their heart gives out so they may die because that's what they want.

Is an engines sole purpose to convert energy into mechanical energy? Are there not old steam, airplane, and motorcycle engines in museums on display strictly for their design and aesthetic features? Value is always a utility? Is everyone's time worth exactly the same? Is everyone's love and friendship the same?

I don't think the question here is does the heart pump blood or an engine make mechanical power. Of corse it does. Are these things utilities, yes and they are also other things besides utilities. What I am saying here is the value of those things are different to different people and value is subjective not objective. An elitist such as yourself tries to tell people what the value of something is. The truth is you have no say in what is valuable to me or in my life and vice versa.

Values of things are subjective and do not have set prices in which they are worth the same all the time. Even circumstance can make the same item two different prices to the same person.

Bitcoin is worth zero? I'm sorry but this thing you say is worth nothing can buy my airplane ticket to travel across the country so to me it has some value. What you are saying just isn't good enough.

Things need to be utilities for them to have value? Honestly I don't even believe you believe that. I think you are just trying to talk yourself into your weird way of thinking. I'm glad you spent a lot of your time and money going to higher education to learn how to make a simple chart to explain to others the way you think is better then the way they think. I'm happy for you. You have the world figured out. But in all honesty I don't think anyone here really cares and if I were you I'd go get my money back from that fancy college if that's as much critical thinking that they are teaching nowadays.

You do not seem to sure of yourself. Keep trying though, this is a strong subject for such a weak mind.

You haven't schooled me, you just repeated the same nonsense I already refuted.

Painting is valuable because it provides a perceptual experience of satisfaction or pleasure. Pleasure is a mental state that humans experience as positive, enjoyable, or worth seeking. Or put simply, pleasure is a human need, it drives us, the way hunger does or fear. That is why painting is valuable - its inherent properties are able to satisfy human needs. Now, the degree to which something is experienced as pleasurable, together with someone's wealth, determine how much someone is willing to pay for it. Thus, value is objective since it is inherent to a picture, while price is subjective since it is inherent to a person.

Inherent property of a dollar is its claim status, which can ultimately provide its holder with goods, services or property of borrowers. And it is this inherent property what makes dollar valuable.

Even a rock, due to its inherent property of hardness, is valuable  - it can be used as a weapon and save human life in some circumstances. In that case, a person might pay a million dollars for it.

But, can for e.g. a particle which comprises a rock be used to save human life? No. Can it be used to satisfy other human needs? No. That is why this particle is valueless. Simply put, its inherent properties cannot provide utility to people. The same is true for Bitcoin. It is a number, it is an abstract mathematical object, it is mere byte in a memory whose inherent properties cannot provide utility to people. That is why it is valueless.

Value is based on belief it is not objective. Belief and value are both subjective.

What you are telling me and everyone here is the only reason anyone buys a painting or the only emotion a painting gives is pleasure.. You really think anyone is buying that garbage? The degree to which something is pleasurable is also different among people. Two people may look at the same painting and feel differently about it. It is not only the paint and canvas that can give objective value to a painting it is the emotion behind it. Sometimes that emotion is pleasure but not all the time. Sometimes that emotion is a wide range of other emotions. One person may see a painting and get pleasure from it and another may see the same painting and not get pleasure from it. It does not convey the same emotion to everyone. It is subjective. Art is subjective, and the value of art is subjective. It's not that hard to understand.

Why is a $5 bill worth 5 times more then a $1 bill? A $5 bill isn't 5 times bigger. It doesn't have 5 times more ink on it. What is the reason it is worth 5 times more? If you get everyone to believe that it is worth 5 times more then it is true. Just because something is legally enforceable or true does not mean it is right.

"Even a rock, due to its inherent property of hardness, is valuable  - it can be used as a weapon and save human life in some circumstances. In that case, a person might pay a million dollars for it.."  This is about the smartest thing you will probably ever say. I'd think about this for a while if I were you.

Here is where your logic breaks down though. A particle of a rock is not a rock. A rock is a lot of rock particles put together that make a rock. These are two different things. Is a particle of a human a human? No you need a lot of different particles put together to make a human.

Who are you to tell anyone what the value of a rock particle is anyway? That is something for individuals to decide for themselves. You do not speak for everyone when you say what is valuable for human needs you speak for yourself. Maybe this rock particle came from the moon, or a far away planet. Maybe it's value to someone is something more then it's inherent hardness. This is where your elitist attitude fails. You have no say in what two people find value in. If two people want to trade something between each other that has no value to you or human kind why would you even care? It's none of your business in the first place.

I'll break it down in the stupidest way I can. Hopefully you will be able to understand. Person A draws a number 1 on a piece of paper and Person B draws a number 3 on a piece of paper. Person A and person B like each others number better and want to trade these pieces of paper with each other and they are both happy with that. You being elitist person C have no business telling person A and B what they can do, trade between each other or find value in. This fact right here destroys pretty much everything you are saying.

By your own words you say email has value because it contains information about some aspect of reality. The blockchain holds this same type of information. The blockchain is a record of truth.

Even rock particles have some value for the simple fact they exist. Anything that exists can be traded between two people and can be a utility.

The more time that passes the more people will start to find more use from cryptocurrency. Each time this happens it will add more value to it and what you are saying will become less creditable.

[halfmil]

...
Actually, I am not sure he is just trolling. He has a solid, veeeery theoretical point. Imo, we are just abstractly, in theory, talking about "value" in general and bitcoin. In practice this debate is actually quite meaningless. It is still imo interesting debate.

I know OP from his other threads. Sometimes he is thought-provoking, I'll give him that, but usually he would just waffle around good old "bitcoin is worthless because it has no intrinsic value" rhetoric, acting like he has come up with something new.

In this thread he attempts to re-define the meaning of the word "value" to fit his narrative. I don't think there's a single country in the world that would allow you not to pay taxes on otherwise taxable income just because you take bitcoin as a payment, or allow you to hide your wealth in bitcoin from wife you're divorcing - because it has no value, right?
Any sensible person would rather adjust his definitions to be compatible with the rest of the world - but that wouldn't earn him 5 pages of replies.

I have heard that bitcoin has no intrinsic value countless times from naysayers but I don't think that is the case. Correct me if I am wrong but the bitcoins that are printed on paper that come out of those bitcoin atm machines with the qr code on them have every bit of intrinsic value as paper money has. As in you can use them to write on, or start a fire with ect.. matter of fact you can just carve a wallet address or put a qr code on anything you want like a bar of gold or like those physical bitcoins they sell that you can load the amount of BTC you want on it. Bitcoin does not have intrinsic value because it doesn't need to have it but anyone can give bitcoin intrinsic value by turning it into something physical they can hold if they want to.

[fxsurfer]

Bitcoin has value, because a lot of resources must be spent (hardware, electricity and bandwidth) to mine Bitcoins. Gold and Silver are unfounded but they have value, because it’s difficult to be found and mined. The same applies to Bitcoin. Bitcoin has unique features, so people want it, and they pay for it.

So, Bitcoin HAS value. Countries tolerate Bitcoin, because they know that it has value, and it’s not a scam.

Your logic is wrong. If a guy who lives in Australia goes to France just to get a grain of sand from a beach in St Tropez, he would spend lots of resources to "mine" that grain of sand. But, does that mean a grain of sand has value? Of course not. Value of X comes from the utility of X, which will stay the same regardless of the resources required to get it. X will stay X, sand will stay sand and number(bitcoin) will stay number even if trillions of dollars are spent to get them. 

So, your argument in the form: "Bitcoin is mined -> mining requires resources (hardware, electricity) ->  resources have value -> therefore Bitcoin has value", is invalid.  If an effect is caused by something that is very valuable this won't make effect valuable. For e.g., smashing Bugatti Veyron into the wall won't make damaged wall valuable.

It is mind-blowing how many irrational excuses are used here just to justify the ownership of a worthless number which occupies one byte in a publicly distributed database.

[fxsurfer]

The value of anything is subjective. Ask 1000 different people what they think a bitcoin is worth and get 1000 different answers. You see to some people Bitcoin is worth zero because they either don’t care about it or don’t want to use it or maybe even know anything about it. To some people bitcoin is very valuable. It would depend on who you are asking. Everything is only worth what someone else will pay for it. There is no such thing as absolute value. To some people gold and diamonds are just shiny rocks. What is the dollar value you would put on love or a friendship? What is your pet dog or cat worth? What is your time worth? What is your car worth? These questions all have very different answers depending on who you are talking to because value is subjective not objective.

It is mind blowing how you people are poorly educated. The value is NOT subjective. The value of a thing is its ability to provide some utility. The utility of an engine is its ability to perform function - to convert one form of energy into mechanical energy. Now, is the ability to convert energy subjective? Of course, not. That is why if you ask 1000 different people whether a car engine can convert energy you won't get 1000 different answers.

The utility of a heart is its ability to pump blood to the organs and tissues of your body that need the oxygen and nutrients it carries. Now, is this ability subjective? Of course, not.

The utility of fiat money is its ability to provide its owner with assets of the banks or with property of borrowers. And this is also not subjective but legally enforceable, formally recorded in the balance sheets of the banks, and confirmed every time when a borrower if forced to give his property, goods or services to fiat money owners in order to get funds for his loan payments.

Bitcoin on the other hand has no utility, as it is just a byte in a memory.

Don't hurt your mind to much thinking about it. What is really amusing to me is that even though elitist like you have wasted a lot of their life learning facts in higher education they still need poorly educated people like me to school you on what value is.

If "the value of a thing is it's ability to provide some utility" and value is not subjective please tell me what makes a painting or artwork valuable. Why is some art worth nothing and some paintings are worth a million dollars?

Do you really think everyone on this planet values their heart exactly the same even as a utility? There are people on this earth that have some serious problems and are in traumatic consent pain they can only pray and hope that their heart gives out so they may die because that's what they want.

Is an engines sole purpose to convert energy into mechanical energy? Are there not old steam, airplane, and motorcycle engines in museums on display strictly for their design and aesthetic features? Value is always a utility? Is everyone's time worth exactly the same? Is everyone's love and friendship the same?

I don't think the question here is does the heart pump blood or an engine make mechanical power. Of corse it does. Are these things utilities, yes and they are also other things besides utilities. What I am saying here is the value of those things are different to different people and value is subjective not objective. An elitist such as yourself tries to tell people what the value of something is. The truth is you have no say in what is valuable to me or in my life and vice versa.

Values of things are subjective and do not have set prices in which they are worth the same all the time. Even circumstance can make the same item two different prices to the same person.

Bitcoin is worth zero? I'm sorry but this thing you say is worth nothing can buy my airplane ticket to travel across the country so to me it has some value. What you are saying just isn't good enough.

Things need to be utilities for them to have value? Honestly I don't even believe you believe that. I think you are just trying to talk yourself into your weird way of thinking. I'm glad you spent a lot of your time and money going to higher education to learn how to make a simple chart to explain to others the way you think is better then the way they think. I'm happy for you. You have the world figured out. But in all honesty I don't think anyone here really cares and if I were you I'd go get my money back from that fancy college if that's as much critical thinking that they are teaching nowadays.

You do not seem to sure of yourself. Keep trying though, this is a strong subject for such a weak mind.

You haven't schooled me, you just repeated the same nonsense I already refuted.

Painting is valuable because it provides a perceptual experience of satisfaction or pleasure. Pleasure is a mental state that humans experience as positive, enjoyable, or worth seeking. Or put simply, pleasure is a human need, it drives us, the way hunger does or fear. That is why painting is valuable - its inherent properties are able to satisfy human needs. Now, the degree to which something is experienced as pleasurable, together with someone's wealth, determine how much someone is willing to pay for it. Thus, value is objective since it is inherent to a picture, while price is subjective since it is inherent to a person.

Inherent property of a dollar is its claim status, which can ultimately provide its holder with goods, services or property of borrowers. And it is this inherent property what makes dollar valuable.

Even a rock, due to its inherent property of hardness, is valuable  - it can be used as a weapon and save human life in some circumstances. In that case, a person might pay a million dollars for it.

But, can for e.g. a particle which comprises a rock be used to save human life? No. Can it be used to satisfy other human needs? No. That is why this particle is valueless. Simply put, its inherent properties cannot provide utility to people. The same is true for Bitcoin. It is a number, it is an abstract mathematical object, it is mere byte in a memory whose inherent properties cannot provide utility to people. That is why it is valueless.

Value is based on belief it is not objective. Belief and value are both subjective.

What you are telling me and everyone here is the only reason anyone buys a painting or the only emotion a painting gives is pleasure.. You really think anyone is buying that garbage? The degree to which something is pleasurable is also different among people. Two people may look at the same painting and feel differently about it. It is not only the paint and canvas that can give objective value to a painting it is the emotion behind it. Sometimes that emotion is pleasure but not all the time. Sometimes that emotion is a wide range of other emotions. One person may see a painting and get pleasure from it and another may see the same painting and not get pleasure from it. It does not convey the same emotion to everyone. It is subjective. Art is subjective, and the value of art is subjective. It's not that hard to understand.

Why is a $5 bill worth 5 times more then a $1 bill? A $5 bill isn't 5 times bigger. It doesn't have 5 times more ink on it. What is the reason it is worth 5 times more? If you get everyone to believe that it is worth 5 times more then it is true. Just because something is legally enforceable or true does not mean it is right.

"Even a rock, due to its inherent property of hardness, is valuable  - it can be used as a weapon and save human life in some circumstances. In that case, a person might pay a million dollars for it.."  This is about the smartest thing you will probably ever say. I'd think about this for a while if I were you.

Here is where your logic breaks down though. A particle of a rock is not a rock. A rock is a lot of rock particles put together that make a rock. These are two different things. Is a particle of a human a human? No you need a lot of different particles put together to make a human.

Who are you to tell anyone what the value of a rock particle is anyway? That is something for individuals to decide for themselves. You do not speak for everyone when you say what is valuable for human needs you speak for yourself. Maybe this rock particle came from the moon, or a far away planet. Maybe it's value to someone is something more then it's inherent hardness. This is where your elitist attitude fails. You have no say in what two people find value in. If two people want to trade something between each other that has no value to you or human kind why would you even care? It's none of your business in the first place.

I'll break it down in the stupidest way I can. Hopefully you will be able to understand. Person A draws a number 1 on a piece of paper and Person B draws a number 3 on a piece of paper. Person A and person B like each others number better and want to trade these pieces of paper with each other and they are both happy with that. You being elitist person C have no business telling person A and B what they can do, trade between each other or find value in. This fact right here destroys pretty much everything you are saying.

By your own words you say email has value because it contains information about some aspect of reality. The blockchain holds this same type of information. The blockchain is a record of truth.

Even rock particles have some value for the simple fact they exist. Anything that exists can be traded between two people and can be a utility.

The more time that passes the more people will start to find more use from cryptocurrency. Each time this happens it will add more value to it and what you are saying will become less creditable.

I already responded to all these points, but there is one more point that I want to add, since people here constantly conflate the degree of value of X and value of X. Of course that the degree of value varies with regards to the subjective preferences of people and the circumstances in which they find themselves. The degree of water value for a man dying of thirst in a desert if obviously higher then for a man who stays in the Plaza Hotel. But this has nothing to do with value of water. Water is valuable because it can provide utility to people and this is true regardless of the degree of water value. So, value is indeed based on subjective preferences, but only in the case of things that already have value, i.e. things whose inherent properties can provide utility to people. Bitcoin - a byte in a memory and a grain of sand cannot provide such utility, so the above subjectivity does not apply to them. Or to put it another way, subjectivity cannot make valueless thing valuable - it can only change the degree of value of valuable things.

[dohh]

I already responded to all these points, but there is one more point that I want to add, since people here constantly conflate the degree of value of X and value of X. Of course that the degree of value varies with regards to the subjective preferences of people and the circumstances in which they find themselves. The degree of water value for a man dying of thirst in a desert if obviously higher then for a man who stays in the Plaza Hotel. But this has nothing to do with value of water. Water is valuable because it can provide utility to people and this is true regardless of the degree of water value. So, value is indeed based on subjective preferences, but only in the case of things that already have value, i.e. things whose inherent properties can provide utility to people. Bitcoin - a byte in a memory and a grain of sand cannot provide such utility, so the above subjectivity does not apply to them. Or to put it another way, subjectivity cannot make valueless thing valuable - it can only change the degree of value of valuable things.

Another series of bullshit.

1) water provides  degree of utility to people in certain circumstances and therefore definitely varies in value, depending on context. A dying man´s body absorbs water, giving it a value as high as life. I, on the other hand, drink at the moment water out of boredom and pee out most of it. This concrete portion of water has day and night difference of value for me and dying man.

2) Bitcoin, byte or not, has some value. Most of people here would give me water in return of BTC. So BTC is subjectively valuable for them, if I really need water, its valuable for me too. If no person on earth would trade me water in return of BTC, it would have zero value for me, therefore being valueless.

3) Now You are retreating from Your own arguments. If subjectivity can change degree of value, then it can also make valueless things valuable and vice versa. Valueless thing is a valuable thing with value degree of zero for that subject.

[halfmil]

The value of anything is subjective. Ask 1000 different people what they think a bitcoin is worth and get 1000 different answers. You see to some people Bitcoin is worth zero because they either don’t care about it or don’t want to use it or maybe even know anything about it. To some people bitcoin is very valuable. It would depend on who you are asking. Everything is only worth what someone else will pay for it. There is no such thing as absolute value. To some people gold and diamonds are just shiny rocks. What is the dollar value you would put on love or a friendship? What is your pet dog or cat worth? What is your time worth? What is your car worth? These questions all have very different answers depending on who you are talking to because value is subjective not objective.

It is mind blowing how you people are poorly educated. The value is NOT subjective. The value of a thing is its ability to provide some utility. The utility of an engine is its ability to perform function - to convert one form of energy into mechanical energy. Now, is the ability to convert energy subjective? Of course, not. That is why if you ask 1000 different people whether a car engine can convert energy you won't get 1000 different answers.

The utility of a heart is its ability to pump blood to the organs and tissues of your body that need the oxygen and nutrients it carries. Now, is this ability subjective? Of course, not.

The utility of fiat money is its ability to provide its owner with assets of the banks or with property of borrowers. And this is also not subjective but legally enforceable, formally recorded in the balance sheets of the banks, and confirmed every time when a borrower if forced to give his property, goods or services to fiat money owners in order to get funds for his loan payments.

Bitcoin on the other hand has no utility, as it is just a byte in a memory.

Don't hurt your mind to much thinking about it. What is really amusing to me is that even though elitist like you have wasted a lot of their life learning facts in higher education they still need poorly educated people like me to school you on what value is.

If "the value of a thing is it's ability to provide some utility" and value is not subjective please tell me what makes a painting or artwork valuable. Why is some art worth nothing and some paintings are worth a million dollars?

Do you really think everyone on this planet values their heart exactly the same even as a utility? There are people on this earth that have some serious problems and are in traumatic consent pain they can only pray and hope that their heart gives out so they may die because that's what they want.

Is an engines sole purpose to convert energy into mechanical energy? Are there not old steam, airplane, and motorcycle engines in museums on display strictly for their design and aesthetic features? Value is always a utility? Is everyone's time worth exactly the same? Is everyone's love and friendship the same?

I don't think the question here is does the heart pump blood or an engine make mechanical power. Of corse it does. Are these things utilities, yes and they are also other things besides utilities. What I am saying here is the value of those things are different to different people and value is subjective not objective. An elitist such as yourself tries to tell people what the value of something is. The truth is you have no say in what is valuable to me or in my life and vice versa.

Values of things are subjective and do not have set prices in which they are worth the same all the time. Even circumstance can make the same item two different prices to the same person.

Bitcoin is worth zero? I'm sorry but this thing you say is worth nothing can buy my airplane ticket to travel across the country so to me it has some value. What you are saying just isn't good enough.

Things need to be utilities for them to have value? Honestly I don't even believe you believe that. I think you are just trying to talk yourself into your weird way of thinking. I'm glad you spent a lot of your time and money going to higher education to learn how to make a simple chart to explain to others the way you think is better then the way they think. I'm happy for you. You have the world figured out. But in all honesty I don't think anyone here really cares and if I were you I'd go get my money back from that fancy college if that's as much critical thinking that they are teaching nowadays.

You do not seem to sure of yourself. Keep trying though, this is a strong subject for such a weak mind.

You haven't schooled me, you just repeated the same nonsense I already refuted.

Painting is valuable because it provides a perceptual experience of satisfaction or pleasure. Pleasure is a mental state that humans experience as positive, enjoyable, or worth seeking. Or put simply, pleasure is a human need, it drives us, the way hunger does or fear. That is why painting is valuable - its inherent properties are able to satisfy human needs. Now, the degree to which something is experienced as pleasurable, together with someone's wealth, determine how much someone is willing to pay for it. Thus, value is objective since it is inherent to a picture, while price is subjective since it is inherent to a person.

Inherent property of a dollar is its claim status, which can ultimately provide its holder with goods, services or property of borrowers. And it is this inherent property what makes dollar valuable.

Even a rock, due to its inherent property of hardness, is valuable  - it can be used as a weapon and save human life in some circumstances. In that case, a person might pay a million dollars for it.

But, can for e.g. a particle which comprises a rock be used to save human life? No. Can it be used to satisfy other human needs? No. That is why this particle is valueless. Simply put, its inherent properties cannot provide utility to people. The same is true for Bitcoin. It is a number, it is an abstract mathematical object, it is mere byte in a memory whose inherent properties cannot provide utility to people. That is why it is valueless.

Value is based on belief it is not objective. Belief and value are both subjective.

What you are telling me and everyone here is the only reason anyone buys a painting or the only emotion a painting gives is pleasure.. You really think anyone is buying that garbage? The degree to which something is pleasurable is also different among people. Two people may look at the same painting and feel differently about it. It is not only the paint and canvas that can give objective value to a painting it is the emotion behind it. Sometimes that emotion is pleasure but not all the time. Sometimes that emotion is a wide range of other emotions. One person may see a painting and get pleasure from it and another may see the same painting and not get pleasure from it. It does not convey the same emotion to everyone. It is subjective. Art is subjective, and the value of art is subjective. It's not that hard to understand.

Why is a $5 bill worth 5 times more then a $1 bill? A $5 bill isn't 5 times bigger. It doesn't have 5 times more ink on it. What is the reason it is worth 5 times more? If you get everyone to believe that it is worth 5 times more then it is true. Just because something is legally enforceable or true does not mean it is right.

"Even a rock, due to its inherent property of hardness, is valuable  - it can be used as a weapon and save human life in some circumstances. In that case, a person might pay a million dollars for it.."  This is about the smartest thing you will probably ever say. I'd think about this for a while if I were you.

Here is where your logic breaks down though. A particle of a rock is not a rock. A rock is a lot of rock particles put together that make a rock. These are two different things. Is a particle of a human a human? No you need a lot of different particles put together to make a human.

Who are you to tell anyone what the value of a rock particle is anyway? That is something for individuals to decide for themselves. You do not speak for everyone when you say what is valuable for human needs you speak for yourself. Maybe this rock particle came from the moon, or a far away planet. Maybe it's value to someone is something more then it's inherent hardness. This is where your elitist attitude fails. You have no say in what two people find value in. If two people want to trade something between each other that has no value to you or human kind why would you even care? It's none of your business in the first place.

I'll break it down in the stupidest way I can. Hopefully you will be able to understand. Person A draws a number 1 on a piece of paper and Person B draws a number 3 on a piece of paper. Person A and person B like each others number better and want to trade these pieces of paper with each other and they are both happy with that. You being elitist person C have no business telling person A and B what they can do, trade between each other or find value in. This fact right here destroys pretty much everything you are saying.

By your own words you say email has value because it contains information about some aspect of reality. The blockchain holds this same type of information. The blockchain is a record of truth.

Even rock particles have some value for the simple fact they exist. Anything that exists can be traded between two people and can be a utility.

The more time that passes the more people will start to find more use from cryptocurrency. Each time this happens it will add more value to it and what you are saying will become less creditable.

I already responded to all these points, but there is one more point that I want to add, since people here constantly conflate the degree of value of X and value of X. Of course that the degree of value varies with regards to the subjective preferences of people and the circumstances in which they find themselves. The degree of water value for a man dying of thirst in a desert if obviously higher then for a man who stays in the Plaza Hotel. But this has nothing to do with value of water. Water is valuable because it can provide utility to people and this is true regardless of the degree of water value. So, value is indeed based on subjective preferences, but only in the case of things that already have value, i.e. things whose inherent properties can provide utility to people. Bitcoin - a byte in a memory and a grain of sand cannot provide such utility, so the above subjectivity does not apply to them. Or to put it another way, subjectivity cannot make valueless thing valuable - it can only change the degree of value of valuable things.

I don’t believe you responded to any of those points. But here is what I will tell you. The truth is multi layered and there are a lot of facts in life. You speak in half truths.

The truth is water is only a valuable utility to people that want to live. Some people would rather die then to do something they don’t want to do to get water. To these people water is valueless. Zero. Zilch.

So now you have agreed that value is subjective but only to things that have value in the first place..

Bitcoin can be traded between people. This fact alone gives it value.

Physical bitcoins have intrinsic value. How can something with intrinsic value be worth zero?

[fxsurfer]

I already responded to all these points, but there is one more point that I want to add, since people here constantly conflate the degree of value of X and value of X. Of course that the degree of value varies with regards to the subjective preferences of people and the circumstances in which they find themselves. The degree of water value for a man dying of thirst in a desert if obviously higher then for a man who stays in the Plaza Hotel. But this has nothing to do with value of water. Water is valuable because it can provide utility to people and this is true regardless of the degree of water value. So, value is indeed based on subjective preferences, but only in the case of things that already have value, i.e. things whose inherent properties can provide utility to people. Bitcoin - a byte in a memory and a grain of sand cannot provide such utility, so the above subjectivity does not apply to them. Or to put it another way, subjectivity cannot make valueless thing valuable - it can only change the degree of value of valuable things.

Another series of bullshit.

1) water provides  degree of utility to people in certain circumstances and therefore definitely varies in value, depending on context. A dying man´s body absorbs water, giving it a value as high as life. I, on the other hand, drink at the moment water out of boredom and pee out most of it. This concrete portion of water has day and night difference of value for me and dying man.

2) Bitcoin, byte or not, has some value. Most of people here would give me water in return of BTC. So BTC is subjectively valuable for them, if I really need water, its valuable for me too. If no person on earth would trade me water in return of BTC, it would have zero value for me, therefore being valueless.

3) Now You are retreating from Your own arguments. If subjectivity can change degree of value, then it can also make valueless things valuable and vice versa. Valueless thing is a valuable thing with value degree of zero for that subject.

From the premise: most of people would give me X in return of Y it does not follow: X has value. People can give things for various reasons, be it: ignorance, stupidity, fraud, manipulation, etc. A lot of people had given their money to enter in various pyramid schemes. But that didn't make these schemes valuable. Hence, your logic is flawed.

[fxsurfer]

I don’t believe you responded to any of those points. But here is what I will tell you. The truth is multi layered and there are a lot of facts in life. You speak in half truths.

The truth is water is only a valuable utility to people that want to live. Some people would rather die then to do something they don’t want to do to get water. To these people water is valueless. Zero. Zilch.

So now you have agreed that value is subjective but only to things that have value in the first place..

Bitcoin can be traded between people. This fact alone gives it value.

Physical bitcoins have intrinsic value. How can something with intrinsic value be worth zero?

Your belief is your personal problem.

Regarding people that would rather die. Value of X is not based on wants of some people, but on the ability of a thing to provide utility to human beings/humans/Homo sapiens. 'Wish to die' does not belong to the definition of Homo sapiens.

Everything that is made up of atoms can be traded between people but this is not what gives value to things.

[dohh]

I already responded to all these points, but there is one more point that I want to add, since people here constantly conflate the degree of value of X and value of X. Of course that the degree of value varies with regards to the subjective preferences of people and the circumstances in which they find themselves. The degree of water value for a man dying of thirst in a desert if obviously higher then for a man who stays in the Plaza Hotel. But this has nothing to do with value of water. Water is valuable because it can provide utility to people and this is true regardless of the degree of water value. So, value is indeed based on subjective preferences, but only in the case of things that already have value, i.e. things whose inherent properties can provide utility to people. Bitcoin - a byte in a memory and a grain of sand cannot provide such utility, so the above subjectivity does not apply to them. Or to put it another way, subjectivity cannot make valueless thing valuable - it can only change the degree of value of valuable things.

Another series of bullshit.

1) water provides  degree of utility to people in certain circumstances and therefore definitely varies in value, depending on context. A dying man´s body absorbs water, giving it a value as high as life. I, on the other hand, drink at the moment water out of boredom and pee out most of it. This concrete portion of water has day and night difference of value for me and dying man.

2) Bitcoin, byte or not, has some value. Most of people here would give me water in return of BTC. So BTC is subjectively valuable for them, if I really need water, its valuable for me too. If no person on earth would trade me water in return of BTC, it would have zero value for me, therefore being valueless.

3) Now You are retreating from Your own arguments. If subjectivity can change degree of value, then it can also make valueless things valuable and vice versa. Valueless thing is a valuable thing with value degree of zero for that subject.

From the premise: most of people would give me X in return of Y it does not follow: X has value. People can give things for various reasons, be it: ignorance, stupidity, fraud, manipulation, etc. A lot of people had given their money to enter in various pyramid schemes. But that didn't make these schemes valuable. Hence, your logic is flawed.

You are going a it off-topic, but are still wrong.

Even being involved in pyramid schemes can be valuable, althought in criminal way. In that case valuable is position, in which You have joined and which allows You to scam those other people, who lose money. Those positions have very high value for criminals, who are masterminds and early joiners into scheme.

Same goes for BTC scheme. What is most valuable in this scheme, is position of early miners, when "mining" could have called accordingly only because the mechanism of process was similar. Thore were essentially free "game coins", which also were valued accordingly 0,01 USD etc.

[halfmil]

I don’t believe you responded to any of those points. But here is what I will tell you. The truth is multi layered and there are a lot of facts in life. You speak in half truths.

The truth is water is only a valuable utility to people that want to live. Some people would rather die then to do something they don’t want to do to get water. To these people water is valueless. Zero. Zilch.

So now you have agreed that value is subjective but only to things that have value in the first place..

Bitcoin can be traded between people. This fact alone gives it value.

Physical bitcoins have intrinsic value. How can something with intrinsic value be worth zero?

Your belief is your personal problem.

Regarding people that would rather die. Value of X is not based on wants of some people, but on the ability of a thing to provide utility to human beings/humans/Homo sapiens. 'Wish to die' does not belong to the definition of Homo sapiens.

Everything that is made up of atoms can be traded between people but this is not what gives value to things.

Again, you do not speak for all homo sapains. But is there a reason you skipped the fact that physical bitcoins have intrinsic value? Or are you just choosing to ignore that fact?

[fxsurfer]

I already responded to all these points, but there is one more point that I want to add, since people here constantly conflate the degree of value of X and value of X. Of course that the degree of value varies with regards to the subjective preferences of people and the circumstances in which they find themselves. The degree of water value for a man dying of thirst in a desert if obviously higher then for a man who stays in the Plaza Hotel. But this has nothing to do with value of water. Water is valuable because it can provide utility to people and this is true regardless of the degree of water value. So, value is indeed based on subjective preferences, but only in the case of things that already have value, i.e. things whose inherent properties can provide utility to people. Bitcoin - a byte in a memory and a grain of sand cannot provide such utility, so the above subjectivity does not apply to them. Or to put it another way, subjectivity cannot make valueless thing valuable - it can only change the degree of value of valuable things.

Another series of bullshit.

1) water provides  degree of utility to people in certain circumstances and therefore definitely varies in value, depending on context. A dying man´s body absorbs water, giving it a value as high as life. I, on the other hand, drink at the moment water out of boredom and pee out most of it. This concrete portion of water has day and night difference of value for me and dying man.

2) Bitcoin, byte or not, has some value. Most of people here would give me water in return of BTC. So BTC is subjectively valuable for them, if I really need water, its valuable for me too. If no person on earth would trade me water in return of BTC, it would have zero value for me, therefore being valueless.

3) Now You are retreating from Your own arguments. If subjectivity can change degree of value, then it can also make valueless things valuable and vice versa. Valueless thing is a valuable thing with value degree of zero for that subject.

From the premise: most of people would give me X in return of Y it does not follow: X has value. People can give things for various reasons, be it: ignorance, stupidity, fraud, manipulation, etc. A lot of people had given their money to enter in various pyramid schemes. But that didn't make these schemes valuable. Hence, your logic is flawed.

You are going a it off-topic, but are still wrong.

Even being involved in pyramid schemes can be valuable, althought in criminal way. In that case valuable is position, in which You have joined and which allows You to scam those other people, who lose money. Those positions have very high value for criminals, who are masterminds and early joiners into scheme.

Same goes for BTC scheme. What is most valuable in this scheme, is position of early miners, when "mining" could have called accordingly only because the mechanism of process was similar. Thore were essentially free "game coins", which also were valued accordingly 0,01 USD etc.

Of course, for Satoshi and other early miners "BTC scheme" was very valuable. But bitcoin - symbol/number/byte that is connected to the name of John Doe is not valuable because of that. This byte was just used as means to transfer value from pocket of John Doe to the pockets of Satoshi and early miners. Numbers couldn't provide them utility, which is why they used BTC scheme to get that utility in things they can eat, drink, wear, drive, sit on, enter into, please the aesthetic senses, legally enforce(fiat money), etc. Worthless numbers are left to people like you, who are as a result, forced to find value in valuelessness, by using a series of irrational excuses.

[dohh]

You are going a it off-topic, but are still wrong.

Even being involved in pyramid schemes can be valuable, althought in criminal way. In that case valuable is position, in which You have joined and which allows You to scam those other people, who lose money. Those positions have very high value for criminals, who are masterminds and early joiners into scheme.

Same goes for BTC scheme. What is most valuable in this scheme, is position of early miners, when "mining" could have called accordingly only because the mechanism of process was similar. Thore were essentially free "game coins", which also were valued accordingly 0,01 USD etc.

Of course, for Satoshi and other early miners "BTC scheme" was very valuable. But bitcoin - symbol/number/byte that is connected to the name of John Doe is not valuable because of that. This byte was just used as means to transfer value from pocket of John Doe to the pockets of Satoshi and early miners. Numbers couldn't provide them utility, which is why they used BTC scheme to get that utility in things they can eat, drink, wear, drive, sit on, enter into, please the aesthetic senses, legally enforce(fiat money), etc. Worthless numbers are left to people like you, who are as a result, forced to find value in valuelessness, by using a series of irrational excuses.
[/quote]

Precicely and that is BTCs value for Satoshi and early miners!

Now, there is not just Satoshi and early miners, but a group of relatively early miners, then mid-time miners and so on... For each of them BTC scheme scammed some money, therefore being valueable same was as to early miners, just in less amount.

[fxsurfer]

I don’t believe you responded to any of those points. But here is what I will tell you. The truth is multi layered and there are a lot of facts in life. You speak in half truths.

The truth is water is only a valuable utility to people that want to live. Some people would rather die then to do something they don’t want to do to get water. To these people water is valueless. Zero. Zilch.

So now you have agreed that value is subjective but only to things that have value in the first place..

Bitcoin can be traded between people. This fact alone gives it value.

Physical bitcoins have intrinsic value. How can something with intrinsic value be worth zero?

Your belief is your personal problem.

Regarding people that would rather die. Value of X is not based on wants of some people, but on the ability of a thing to provide utility to human beings/humans/Homo sapiens. 'Wish to die' does not belong to the definition of Homo sapiens.

Everything that is made up of atoms can be traded between people but this is not what gives value to things.

Again, you do not speak for all homo sapains. But is there a reason you skipped the fact that physical bitcoins have intrinsic value? Or are you just choosing to ignore that fact?

Everything is physical, just like the dot at the end of this sentence. But, I've already explained that value comes from utility and not physicality. I have no interest to respond to things I already disproved.

[fxsurfer]

You are going a it off-topic, but are still wrong.

Even being involved in pyramid schemes can be valuable, althought in criminal way. In that case valuable is position, in which You have joined and which allows You to scam those other people, who lose money. Those positions have very high value for criminals, who are masterminds and early joiners into scheme.

Same goes for BTC scheme. What is most valuable in this scheme, is position of early miners, when "mining" could have called accordingly only because the mechanism of process was similar. Thore were essentially free "game coins", which also were valued accordingly 0,01 USD etc.

Of course, for Satoshi and other early miners "BTC scheme" was very valuable. But bitcoin - symbol/number/byte that is connected to the name of John Doe is not valuable because of that. This byte was just used as means to transfer value from pocket of John Doe to the pockets of Satoshi and early miners. Numbers couldn't provide them utility, which is why they used BTC scheme to get that utility in things they can eat, drink, wear, drive, sit on, enter into, please the aesthetic senses, legally enforce(fiat money), etc. Worthless numbers are left to people like you, who are as a result, forced to find value in valuelessness, by using a series of irrational excuses.


Precicely and that is BTCs value for Satoshi and early miners!

Now, there is not just Satoshi and early miners, but a group of relatively early miners, then mid-time miners and so on... For each of them BTC scheme scammed some money, therefore being valueable same was as to early miners, just in less amount.

No, that is NOT BTCs value but manipulation's value. If you were tricked to give million dollars to a scammer who sold you an empty box because you were convinced it contains an expensive diamond, that does not mean that emptiness in the box has value. It just means you've been scammed. Or in other words, scam was the thing that had value, and not the subject of the scam (emptiness).

[dohh]

You are going a it off-topic, but are still wrong.

Even being involved in pyramid schemes can be valuable, althought in criminal way. In that case valuable is position, in which You have joined and which allows You to scam those other people, who lose money. Those positions have very high value for criminals, who are masterminds and early joiners into scheme.

Same goes for BTC scheme. What is most valuable in this scheme, is position of early miners, when "mining" could have called accordingly only because the mechanism of process was similar. Thore were essentially free "game coins", which also were valued accordingly 0,01 USD etc.

Of course, for Satoshi and other early miners "BTC scheme" was very valuable. But bitcoin - symbol/number/byte that is connected to the name of John Doe is not valuable because of that. This byte was just used as means to transfer value from pocket of John Doe to the pockets of Satoshi and early miners. Numbers couldn't provide them utility, which is why they used BTC scheme to get that utility in things they can eat, drink, wear, drive, sit on, enter into, please the aesthetic senses, legally enforce(fiat money), etc. Worthless numbers are left to people like you, who are as a result, forced to find value in valuelessness, by using a series of irrational excuses.


Precicely and that is BTCs value for Satoshi and early miners!

Now, there is not just Satoshi and early miners, but a group of relatively early miners, then mid-time miners and so on... For each of them BTC scheme scammed some money, therefore being valueable same was as to early miners, just in less amount.

No, that is NOT BTCs value but manipulation's value. If you were tricked to give million dollars to a scammer who sold you an empty box because you were convinced it contains an expensive diamond, that does not mean that emptiness in the box has value. It just means you've been scammed. Or in other words, scam was the thing that had value, and not the subject of the scam (emptiness).

Scamming object also has value according their scamming potential. Empty box with ALTCOIN logo on it and empty box with BTC logo on it have totally different scamming values, while BTC scams big time, many altcoins do very little.

[halfmil]

I don’t believe you responded to any of those points. But here is what I will tell you. The truth is multi layered and there are a lot of facts in life. You speak in half truths.

The truth is water is only a valuable utility to people that want to live. Some people would rather die then to do something they don’t want to do to get water. To these people water is valueless. Zero. Zilch.

So now you have agreed that value is subjective but only to things that have value in the first place..

Bitcoin can be traded between people. This fact alone gives it value.

Physical bitcoins have intrinsic value. How can something with intrinsic value be worth zero?

Your belief is your personal problem.

Regarding people that would rather die. Value of X is not based on wants of some people, but on the ability of a thing to provide utility to human beings/humans/Homo sapiens. 'Wish to die' does not belong to the definition of Homo sapiens.

Everything that is made up of atoms can be traded between people but this is not what gives value to things.

Again, you do not speak for all homo sapains. But is there a reason you skipped the fact that physical bitcoins have intrinsic value? Or are you just choosing to ignore that fact?

Everything is physical, just like the dot at the end of this sentence. But, I've already explained that value comes from utility and not physicality. I have no interest to respond to things I already disproved.

Wow that’s rich. You have not disproved that physical bitcoins don’t have intrinsic value. But this must have hit to close to home so I don’t blame you for giving up. You just lost the fight you picked.

[fxsurfer]

You are going a it off-topic, but are still wrong.

Even being involved in pyramid schemes can be valuable, althought in criminal way. In that case valuable is position, in which You have joined and which allows You to scam those other people, who lose money. Those positions have very high value for criminals, who are masterminds and early joiners into scheme.

Same goes for BTC scheme. What is most valuable in this scheme, is position of early miners, when "mining" could have called accordingly only because the mechanism of process was similar. Thore were essentially free "game coins", which also were valued accordingly 0,01 USD etc.

Of course, for Satoshi and other early miners "BTC scheme" was very valuable. But bitcoin - symbol/number/byte that is connected to the name of John Doe is not valuable because of that. This byte was just used as means to transfer value from pocket of John Doe to the pockets of Satoshi and early miners. Numbers couldn't provide them utility, which is why they used BTC scheme to get that utility in things they can eat, drink, wear, drive, sit on, enter into, please the aesthetic senses, legally enforce(fiat money), etc. Worthless numbers are left to people like you, who are as a result, forced to find value in valuelessness, by using a series of irrational excuses.


Precicely and that is BTCs value for Satoshi and early miners!

Now, there is not just Satoshi and early miners, but a group of relatively early miners, then mid-time miners and so on... For each of them BTC scheme scammed some money, therefore being valueable same was as to early miners, just in less amount.

No, that is NOT BTCs value but manipulation's value. If you were tricked to give million dollars to a scammer who sold you an empty box because you were convinced it contains an expensive diamond, that does not mean that emptiness in the box has value. It just means you've been scammed. Or in other words, scam was the thing that had value, and not the subject of the scam (emptiness).

Scamming object also has value according their scamming potential. Empty box with ALTCOIN logo on it and empty box with BTC logo on it have totally different scamming values, while BTC scams big time, many altcoins do very little.

In this case, scamming object is not bitcoin but computers that store blockchain, and in that regard bitcoin owners do not own these computers like box would be owned in mentioned diamond scam. So, in the diamond scam you would at least have the box that can provide you with some utility. It the Bitcoin scam you are left with useless numbers that can provide zero utility.

[fxsurfer]

I don’t believe you responded to any of those points. But here is what I will tell you. The truth is multi layered and there are a lot of facts in life. You speak in half truths.

The truth is water is only a valuable utility to people that want to live. Some people would rather die then to do something they don’t want to do to get water. To these people water is valueless. Zero. Zilch.

So now you have agreed that value is subjective but only to things that have value in the first place..

Bitcoin can be traded between people. This fact alone gives it value.

Physical bitcoins have intrinsic value. How can something with intrinsic value be worth zero?

Your belief is your personal problem.

Regarding people that would rather die. Value of X is not based on wants of some people, but on the ability of a thing to provide utility to human beings/humans/Homo sapiens. 'Wish to die' does not belong to the definition of Homo sapiens.

Everything that is made up of atoms can be traded between people but this is not what gives value to things.

Again, you do not speak for all homo sapains. But is there a reason you skipped the fact that physical bitcoins have intrinsic value? Or are you just choosing to ignore that fact?

Everything is physical, just like the dot at the end of this sentence. But, I've already explained that value comes from utility and not physicality. I have no interest to respond to things I already disproved.

Wow that’s rich. You have not disproved that physical bitcoins don’t have intrinsic value. But this must have hit to close to home so I don’t blame you for giving up. You just lost the fight you picked.

Yes I have. You can't eat, drink, wear, drive, sit on, enter into, or legally enforce physical bitcoins, so they don’t have intrinsic value. Intrinsic value of a paper Bitcoin would be contained in the paper, and not in the name you put on this paper (BTC).

[dohh]

You are going a it off-topic, but are still wrong.

Even being involved in pyramid schemes can be valuable, althought in criminal way. In that case valuable is position, in which You have joined and which allows You to scam those other people, who lose money. Those positions have very high value for criminals, who are masterminds and early joiners into scheme.

Same goes for BTC scheme. What is most valuable in this scheme, is position of early miners, when "mining" could have called accordingly only because the mechanism of process was similar. Thore were essentially free "game coins", which also were valued accordingly 0,01 USD etc.

Of course, for Satoshi and other early miners "BTC scheme" was very valuable. But bitcoin - symbol/number/byte that is connected to the name of John Doe is not valuable because of that. This byte was just used as means to transfer value from pocket of John Doe to the pockets of Satoshi and early miners. Numbers couldn't provide them utility, which is why they used BTC scheme to get that utility in things they can eat, drink, wear, drive, sit on, enter into, please the aesthetic senses, legally enforce(fiat money), etc. Worthless numbers are left to people like you, who are as a result, forced to find value in valuelessness, by using a series of irrational excuses.


Precicely and that is BTCs value for Satoshi and early miners!

Now, there is not just Satoshi and early miners, but a group of relatively early miners, then mid-time miners and so on... For each of them BTC scheme scammed some money, therefore being valueable same was as to early miners, just in less amount.

No, that is NOT BTCs value but manipulation's value. If you were tricked to give million dollars to a scammer who sold you an empty box because you were convinced it contains an expensive diamond, that does not mean that emptiness in the box has value. It just means you've been scammed. Or in other words, scam was the thing that had value, and not the subject of the scam (emptiness).

Scamming object also has value according their scamming potential. Empty box with ALTCOIN logo on it and empty box with BTC logo on it have totally different scamming values, while BTC scams big time, many altcoins do very little.

In this case, scamming object is not bitcoin but computers that store blockchain, and in that regard bitcoin owners do not own these computers like box would be owned in mentioned diamond scam. So, in the diamond scam you would at least have the box that can provide you with some utility. It the Bitcoin scam you are left with useless numbers that can provide zero utility.

Not object, but subject.

As for (scamming) value, they both have value - each coin itself and hardware, that accounts coins. Why coin? Because You need to "hand over" something to get money from Greater Fool. Let it be digital code. In BTC case, it is well promoted, branded and pumped piece of code!

As we agreed few posts ago, value is subjective and therefore You can not tell, that BTC as an object has no value, because this statement is general. You may say, BTC has no value for You. If BTC as an object had no value universally, You could easily gather all BTCs into Your wallet for 1 dollar, because You would be paying more than, their value is.

[dohh]

I don’t believe you responded to any of those points. But here is what I will tell you. The truth is multi layered and there are a lot of facts in life. You speak in half truths.

The truth is water is only a valuable utility to people that want to live. Some people would rather die then to do something they don’t want to do to get water. To these people water is valueless. Zero. Zilch.

So now you have agreed that value is subjective but only to things that have value in the first place..

Bitcoin can be traded between people. This fact alone gives it value.

Physical bitcoins have intrinsic value. How can something with intrinsic value be worth zero?

Your belief is your personal problem.

Regarding people that would rather die. Value of X is not based on wants of some people, but on the ability of a thing to provide utility to human beings/humans/Homo sapiens. 'Wish to die' does not belong to the definition of Homo sapiens.

Everything that is made up of atoms can be traded between people but this is not what gives value to things.

Again, you do not speak for all homo sapains. But is there a reason you skipped the fact that physical bitcoins have intrinsic value? Or are you just choosing to ignore that fact?

Everything is physical, just like the dot at the end of this sentence. But, I've already explained that value comes from utility and not physicality. I have no interest to respond to things I already disproved.

Wow that’s rich. You have not disproved that physical bitcoins don’t have intrinsic value. But this must have hit to close to home so I don’t blame you for giving up. You just lost the fight you picked.

Yes I have. You can't eat, drink, wear, drive, sit on, enter into, or legally enforce physical bitcoins, so they don’t have intrinsic value. Intrinsic value of a paper Bitcoin would be contained in the paper, and not in the name you put on this paper (BTC).

You misuse term "intrinsic value", thats why its very hard to argue with You. Try to give widely accepted definition of "intrinsic value", maybe wikipedia, businessdictionary or cambridge dictionary etc?

If You mean that, it has no fundamental value, as no hope for creating healthy income in future, then yes, I agree with You. It has none. At the same time it most definitely has net realizable value. Thats definitely a value too! My wallet, is more valuable, than Yours if it has more coins in it, that are eligible for cashing out. Doesnt matter, how You call that value.

[fxsurfer]

You are going a it off-topic, but are still wrong.

Even being involved in pyramid schemes can be valuable, althought in criminal way. In that case valuable is position, in which You have joined and which allows You to scam those other people, who lose money. Those positions have very high value for criminals, who are masterminds and early joiners into scheme.

Same goes for BTC scheme. What is most valuable in this scheme, is position of early miners, when "mining" could have called accordingly only because the mechanism of process was similar. Thore were essentially free "game coins", which also were valued accordingly 0,01 USD etc.

Of course, for Satoshi and other early miners "BTC scheme" was very valuable. But bitcoin - symbol/number/byte that is connected to the name of John Doe is not valuable because of that. This byte was just used as means to transfer value from pocket of John Doe to the pockets of Satoshi and early miners. Numbers couldn't provide them utility, which is why they used BTC scheme to get that utility in things they can eat, drink, wear, drive, sit on, enter into, please the aesthetic senses, legally enforce(fiat money), etc. Worthless numbers are left to people like you, who are as a result, forced to find value in valuelessness, by using a series of irrational excuses.


Precicely and that is BTCs value for Satoshi and early miners!

Now, there is not just Satoshi and early miners, but a group of relatively early miners, then mid-time miners and so on... For each of them BTC scheme scammed some money, therefore being valueable same was as to early miners, just in less amount.

No, that is NOT BTCs value but manipulation's value. If you were tricked to give million dollars to a scammer who sold you an empty box because you were convinced it contains an expensive diamond, that does not mean that emptiness in the box has value. It just means you've been scammed. Or in other words, scam was the thing that had value, and not the subject of the scam (emptiness).

Scamming object also has value according their scamming potential. Empty box with ALTCOIN logo on it and empty box with BTC logo on it have totally different scamming values, while BTC scams big time, many altcoins do very little.

In this case, scamming object is not bitcoin but computers that store blockchain, and in that regard bitcoin owners do not own these computers like box would be owned in mentioned diamond scam. So, in the diamond scam you would at least have the box that can provide you with some utility. It the Bitcoin scam you are left with useless numbers that can provide zero utility.

Not object, but subject.

As for (scamming) value, they both have value - each coin itself and hardware, that accounts coins. Why coin? Because You need to "hand over" something to get money from Greater Fool. Let it be digital code. In BTC case, it is well promoted, branded and pumped piece of code!

As we agreed few posts ago, value is subjective and therefore You can not tell, that BTC as an object has no value, because this statement is general. You may say, BTC has no value for You. If BTC as an object had no value universally, You could easily gather all BTCs into Your wallet for 1 dollar, because You would be paying more than, their value is.

Well, it is false information what is "handed over" to get money from Greater Fool, and it is this information what has value to scamers. Thus, it is not number (BTC) what is well promoted, branded and pumped, but false information that BTC has value.

Btw, I didn't say that value is subjective. I said that the degree of value is subjective.

[dohh]

You are going a it off-topic, but are still wrong.

Even being involved in pyramid schemes can be valuable, althought in criminal way. In that case valuable is position, in which You have joined and which allows You to scam those other people, who lose money. Those positions have very high value for criminals, who are masterminds and early joiners into scheme.

Same goes for BTC scheme. What is most valuable in this scheme, is position of early miners, when "mining" could have called accordingly only because the mechanism of process was similar. Thore were essentially free "game coins", which also were valued accordingly 0,01 USD etc.

Of course, for Satoshi and other early miners "BTC scheme" was very valuable. But bitcoin - symbol/number/byte that is connected to the name of John Doe is not valuable because of that. This byte was just used as means to transfer value from pocket of John Doe to the pockets of Satoshi and early miners. Numbers couldn't provide them utility, which is why they used BTC scheme to get that utility in things they can eat, drink, wear, drive, sit on, enter into, please the aesthetic senses, legally enforce(fiat money), etc. Worthless numbers are left to people like you, who are as a result, forced to find value in valuelessness, by using a series of irrational excuses.


Precicely and that is BTCs value for Satoshi and early miners!

Now, there is not just Satoshi and early miners, but a group of relatively early miners, then mid-time miners and so on... For each of them BTC scheme scammed some money, therefore being valueable same was as to early miners, just in less amount.

No, that is NOT BTCs value but manipulation's value. If you were tricked to give million dollars to a scammer who sold you an empty box because you were convinced it contains an expensive diamond, that does not mean that emptiness in the box has value. It just means you've been scammed. Or in other words, scam was the thing that had value, and not the subject of the scam (emptiness).

Scamming object also has value according their scamming potential. Empty box with ALTCOIN logo on it and empty box with BTC logo on it have totally different scamming values, while BTC scams big time, many altcoins do very little.

In this case, scamming object is not bitcoin but computers that store blockchain, and in that regard bitcoin owners do not own these computers like box would be owned in mentioned diamond scam. So, in the diamond scam you would at least have the box that can provide you with some utility. It the Bitcoin scam you are left with useless numbers that can provide zero utility.

Not object, but subject.

As for (scamming) value, they both have value - each coin itself and hardware, that accounts coins. Why coin? Because You need to "hand over" something to get money from Greater Fool. Let it be digital code. In BTC case, it is well promoted, branded and pumped piece of code!

As we agreed few posts ago, value is subjective and therefore You can not tell, that BTC as an object has no value, because this statement is general. You may say, BTC has no value for You. If BTC as an object had no value universally, You could easily gather all BTCs into Your wallet for 1 dollar, because You would be paying more than, their value is.

Well, it is false information what is "handed over" to get money from Greater Fool, and it is this information what has value to scamers. Thus, it is not number (BTC) what is well promoted, branded and pumped, but false information that BTC has value.

Btw, I didn't say that value is subjective. I said that the degree of value is subjective.

Net realizable value is the bigger, the more coins You have, so it depends on their quantity as much as on deceived value for each.

If You agreed, that degree of value is subjective, then You basically agreed, that value is subjective. Because diminishing or growing degrees are at some point practically equal to zero or infinity at graph.
 

[fxsurfer]

I don’t believe you responded to any of those points. But here is what I will tell you. The truth is multi layered and there are a lot of facts in life. You speak in half truths.

The truth is water is only a valuable utility to people that want to live. Some people would rather die then to do something they don’t want to do to get water. To these people water is valueless. Zero. Zilch.

So now you have agreed that value is subjective but only to things that have value in the first place..

Bitcoin can be traded between people. This fact alone gives it value.

Physical bitcoins have intrinsic value. How can something with intrinsic value be worth zero?

Your belief is your personal problem.

Regarding people that would rather die. Value of X is not based on wants of some people, but on the ability of a thing to provide utility to human beings/humans/Homo sapiens. 'Wish to die' does not belong to the definition of Homo sapiens.

Everything that is made up of atoms can be traded between people but this is not what gives value to things.

Again, you do not speak for all homo sapains. But is there a reason you skipped the fact that physical bitcoins have intrinsic value? Or are you just choosing to ignore that fact?

Everything is physical, just like the dot at the end of this sentence. But, I've already explained that value comes from utility and not physicality. I have no interest to respond to things I already disproved.

Wow that’s rich. You have not disproved that physical bitcoins don’t have intrinsic value. But this must have hit to close to home so I don’t blame you for giving up. You just lost the fight you picked.

Yes I have. You can't eat, drink, wear, drive, sit on, enter into, or legally enforce physical bitcoins, so they don’t have intrinsic value. Intrinsic value of a paper Bitcoin would be contained in the paper, and not in the name you put on this paper (BTC).

You misuse term "intrinsic value", thats why its very hard to argue with You. Try to give widely accepted definition of "intrinsic value", maybe wikipedia, businessdictionary or cambridge dictionary etc?

If You mean that, it has no fundamental value, as no hope for creating healthy income in future, then yes, I agree with You. It has none. At the same time it most definitely has net realizable value. Thats definitely a value too! My wallet, is more valuable, than Yours if it has more coins in it, that are eligible for cashing out. Doesnt matter, how You call that value.

I am misusing nothing. It is paper that gives you the ability to write on, or start a fire with, and not letters B, T and C. 

[dohh]

I don’t believe you responded to any of those points. But here is what I will tell you. The truth is multi layered and there are a lot of facts in life. You speak in half truths.

The truth is water is only a valuable utility to people that want to live. Some people would rather die then to do something they don’t want to do to get water. To these people water is valueless. Zero. Zilch.

So now you have agreed that value is subjective but only to things that have value in the first place..

Bitcoin can be traded between people. This fact alone gives it value.

Physical bitcoins have intrinsic value. How can something with intrinsic value be worth zero?

Your belief is your personal problem.

Regarding people that would rather die. Value of X is not based on wants of some people, but on the ability of a thing to provide utility to human beings/humans/Homo sapiens. 'Wish to die' does not belong to the definition of Homo sapiens.

Everything that is made up of atoms can be traded between people but this is not what gives value to things.

Again, you do not speak for all homo sapains. But is there a reason you skipped the fact that physical bitcoins have intrinsic value? Or are you just choosing to ignore that fact?

Everything is physical, just like the dot at the end of this sentence. But, I've already explained that value comes from utility and not physicality. I have no interest to respond to things I already disproved.

Wow that’s rich. You have not disproved that physical bitcoins don’t have intrinsic value. But this must have hit to close to home so I don’t blame you for giving up. You just lost the fight you picked.

Yes I have. You can't eat, drink, wear, drive, sit on, enter into, or legally enforce physical bitcoins, so they don’t have intrinsic value. Intrinsic value of a paper Bitcoin would be contained in the paper, and not in the name you put on this paper (BTC).

You misuse term "intrinsic value", thats why its very hard to argue with You. Try to give widely accepted definition of "intrinsic value", maybe wikipedia, businessdictionary or cambridge dictionary etc?

If You mean that, it has no fundamental value, as no hope for creating healthy income in future, then yes, I agree with You. It has none. At the same time it most definitely has net realizable value. Thats definitely a value too! My wallet, is more valuable, than Yours if it has more coins in it, that are eligible for cashing out. Doesnt matter, how You call that value.

I am misusing nothing. It is paper that gives you the ability to write on, or start a fire with, and not letters B, T and C.  

And piece of code gives You ability to exchange it (at least with some people) against food, petrol or clothes, if You like... Paper or internet are just mediums.

Or if that is not good enough for You again, then piece of code gives You ability to carry (criminal, hyped) value with You in amount, that would not had been possible by carrying pure food.

[fxsurfer]

You are going a it off-topic, but are still wrong.

Even being involved in pyramid schemes can be valuable, althought in criminal way. In that case valuable is position, in which You have joined and which allows You to scam those other people, who lose money. Those positions have very high value for criminals, who are masterminds and early joiners into scheme.

Same goes for BTC scheme. What is most valuable in this scheme, is position of early miners, when "mining" could have called accordingly only because the mechanism of process was similar. Thore were essentially free "game coins", which also were valued accordingly 0,01 USD etc.

Of course, for Satoshi and other early miners "BTC scheme" was very valuable. But bitcoin - symbol/number/byte that is connected to the name of John Doe is not valuable because of that. This byte was just used as means to transfer value from pocket of John Doe to the pockets of Satoshi and early miners. Numbers couldn't provide them utility, which is why they used BTC scheme to get that utility in things they can eat, drink, wear, drive, sit on, enter into, please the aesthetic senses, legally enforce(fiat money), etc. Worthless numbers are left to people like you, who are as a result, forced to find value in valuelessness, by using a series of irrational excuses.


Precicely and that is BTCs value for Satoshi and early miners!

Now, there is not just Satoshi and early miners, but a group of relatively early miners, then mid-time miners and so on... For each of them BTC scheme scammed some money, therefore being valueable same was as to early miners, just in less amount.

No, that is NOT BTCs value but manipulation's value. If you were tricked to give million dollars to a scammer who sold you an empty box because you were convinced it contains an expensive diamond, that does not mean that emptiness in the box has value. It just means you've been scammed. Or in other words, scam was the thing that had value, and not the subject of the scam (emptiness).

Scamming object also has value according their scamming potential. Empty box with ALTCOIN logo on it and empty box with BTC logo on it have totally different scamming values, while BTC scams big time, many altcoins do very little.

In this case, scamming object is not bitcoin but computers that store blockchain, and in that regard bitcoin owners do not own these computers like box would be owned in mentioned diamond scam. So, in the diamond scam you would at least have the box that can provide you with some utility. It the Bitcoin scam you are left with useless numbers that can provide zero utility.

Not object, but subject.

As for (scamming) value, they both have value - each coin itself and hardware, that accounts coins. Why coin? Because You need to "hand over" something to get money from Greater Fool. Let it be digital code. In BTC case, it is well promoted, branded and pumped piece of code!

As we agreed few posts ago, value is subjective and therefore You can not tell, that BTC as an object has no value, because this statement is general. You may say, BTC has no value for You. If BTC as an object had no value universally, You could easily gather all BTCs into Your wallet for 1 dollar, because You would be paying more than, their value is.

Well, it is false information what is "handed over" to get money from Greater Fool, and it is this information what has value to scamers. Thus, it is not number (BTC) what is well promoted, branded and pumped, but false information that BTC has value.

Btw, I didn't say that value is subjective. I said that the degree of value is subjective.

Net realizable value is the bigger, the more coins You have, so it depends on their quantity as much as on deceived value for each.

If You agreed, that degree of value is subjective, then You basically agreed, that value is subjective. Because diminishing or growing degrees are at some point practically equal to zero or infinity at graph.
 

Graph is just a mathematical abstraction that cannot chage the utility of a thing. So, the appeal to graph is just one of those irrational excuses you use in order to find value in valuelessness .

[coffigayo]

In my opinion, you don't understand what value means and how Bitcoin has it, that doesn't mean that Bitcoin has no value. Because values can be made by demeaning people. Even though there are many buyers from Bitcoin sellers, the price may continue to increase or vice versa.

[avarnet]

In my opinion, you don't understand what value means and how Bitcoin has it, that doesn't mean that Bitcoin has no value. Because values can be made by demeaning people. Even though there are many buyers from Bitcoin sellers, the price may continue to increase or vice versa.

absolutely right and until whenever bitcoin certainly has a price even though it is a little and big. especially now that prices are increasingly rising certainly someday the price of bitcoin will make us stare and be amazed

[Perunex]

...
Actually, I am not sure he is just trolling. He has a solid, veeeery theoretical point. Imo, we are just abstractly, in theory, talking about "value" in general and bitcoin. In practice this debate is actually quite meaningless. It is still imo interesting debate.

I know OP from his other threads. Sometimes he is thought-provoking, I'll give him that, but usually he would just waffle around good old "bitcoin is worthless because it has no intrinsic value" rhetoric, acting like he has come up with something new.

In this thread he attempts to re-define the meaning of the word "value" to fit his narrative. I don't think there's a single country in the world that would allow you not to pay taxes on otherwise taxable income just because you take bitcoin as a payment, or allow you to hide your wealth in bitcoin from wife you're divorcing - because it has no value, right?
Any sensible person would rather adjust his definitions to be compatible with the rest of the world - but that wouldn't earn him 5 pages of replies.

But what does he get with the 5-6 pages of replies on his thread? His inner satisfactory and that's it?

His ability to provoke is quite something and this is also art. This thread is the proof. And if it is hard to debate him (even for wrong reasons) he probably is a bit intelligent person? At least a bit?


At the end of the day this thread is quite retarded...


P.S.: I don't know why OP stopped replying my posts...

[bones261]

The OP is correct. Bitcoin, in and of itself, has no intrinsic value. However, this does not prevent it from being P2P electronic cash. All you need is a community to agree that Bitcoin can be used a medium of exchange. Without a community that agrees to this, Bitcoin is basically useless.
Now one can argue that Bitcoin is not suitable as money with the following traits.

Is it fungible? For the most part. One can argue that you can distinguish one UTXO from another UTXO, and this history can be used to make one UTXO more valuable than another.
Is it durable? For the most part. I suppose one can argue that it is possible to erase all copies of the Bitcoin blockchain. Also, one can lose their private key, and no longer have access. However, the Bitcoins are still registered on the blockchain as UTXO. The entries have not been destroyed.
Is it divisible? Yes, currently it is divisible down to one satoshi.
Is it portable? Yes, in several forms.
Is it acceptable? Yes, as long as someone has a connection to the internet, they can find someone to accept it, ATM
Is it uniform? For the most part. However, the community obviously cannot agree exactly how much value a Bitcoin represents. Thus the high level of volatility.
Is it limited in supply? Well it is supposed to be. However, as we recently discovered, there could be code introduced that could effect this either deliberately or unintentionally.

[2fresh]

Well...trading government printed pieces of paper for goods might be more your thing anyway.

[halfmil]

I don’t believe you responded to any of those points. But here is what I will tell you. The truth is multi layered and there are a lot of facts in life. You speak in half truths.

The truth is water is only a valuable utility to people that want to live. Some people would rather die then to do something they don’t want to do to get water. To these people water is valueless. Zero. Zilch.

So now you have agreed that value is subjective but only to things that have value in the first place..

Bitcoin can be traded between people. This fact alone gives it value.

Physical bitcoins have intrinsic value. How can something with intrinsic value be worth zero?

Your belief is your personal problem.

Regarding people that would rather die. Value of X is not based on wants of some people, but on the ability of a thing to provide utility to human beings/humans/Homo sapiens. 'Wish to die' does not belong to the definition of Homo sapiens.

Everything that is made up of atoms can be traded between people but this is not what gives value to things.

Again, you do not speak for all homo sapains. But is there a reason you skipped the fact that physical bitcoins have intrinsic value? Or are you just choosing to ignore that fact?

Everything is physical, just like the dot at the end of this sentence. But, I've already explained that value comes from utility and not physicality. I have no interest to respond to things I already disproved.

Wow that’s rich. You have not disproved that physical bitcoins don’t have intrinsic value. But this must have hit to close to home so I don’t blame you for giving up. You just lost the fight you picked.

Yes I have. You can't eat, drink, wear, drive, sit on, enter into, or legally enforce physical bitcoins, so they don’t have intrinsic value. Intrinsic value of a paper Bitcoin would be contained in the paper, and not in the name you put on this paper (BTC).

No you can't eat or drink physical bitcoins but you are wrong you can wear or sit on them just like paper if you want. I'm not sure why you would want to but it is possible and that is a utility.

Functionally speaking you can embroider a bitcoin qr code on the inside of a jacket. Is that a bitcoin wallet or a piece of clothing. Depends on who you are asking. Technically it can be both.

You can't eat a piece of paper either but you can start a fire with it. Paper is also valuable because it can store information and this is also a utility. There is a difference between a blank piece of paper and one with information on it. One may have more value then starting a fire but this is still intrinsic value. Were all those tests you have taken blank paper or did they contain some type of valuable information on them? A piece of paper with a bitcoin address can store the same type of valuable information.

You are saying a piece of paper with a bitcoin on it is not a bitcoin it is just a piece of paper this is incorrect.

[thuyvy2207]

A hacker can theoretically deplete everyone's wallet, or exploit all the coins available, or do other global destructive things in a short order. Therefore, Bitcoin will be worth zero if we are not careful.

[bones261]

A hacker can theoretically deplete everyone's wallet, or exploit all the coins available, or do other global destructive things in a short order. Therefore, Bitcoin will be worth zero if we are not careful.

Yes, if Bitcoin is found to have a serious flaw and cannot reasonably be useful as a medium of exchange and/or a store of value, then it is worth absolutely nothing since it has no other purpose. (Unless it can be fixed before serious damage occurs. Or reversed altogether.) However, I do not think the people of Venezuela take solace by the fact that at least their paper money can be used as a cheap fuel for a fire, or make paper purses, when things get bad.  

[AliMan]

A hacker can theoretically deplete everyone's wallet, or exploit all the coins available, or do other global destructive things in a short order. Therefore, Bitcoin will be worth zero if we are not careful.

Yes, if Bitcoin is found to have a serious flaw and cannot reasonably be useful as a medium of exchange and/or a store of value, then it is worth absolutely nothing since it has no other purpose. (Unless it can be fixed before serious damage occurs. Or reversed altogether.) However, I do not think the people of Venezuela take solace by the fact that at least their paper money can be used as a cheap fuel for a fire, or make paper purses, when things get bad.  

I think there's no proof that Bitcoin has zero value, how can be a great coin become have no value if many people are still want to buy this coin and still hold some of them. If Bitcoin has no value right now then why is still in the market and still fluctuates, maybe some people misunderstood the current situation of Bitcoin that's why they say it has no value. And for me Bitcoin will remain valuable.

[squatter]

The OP is correct. Bitcoin, in and of itself, has no intrinsic value. However, this does not prevent it from being P2P electronic cash. All you need is a community to agree that Bitcoin can be used a medium of exchange. Without a community that agrees to this, Bitcoin is basically useless.

The OP didn't really make that distinction from the start. Now that the issue is intrinsic value, I'd agree. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. Satoshi himself made that point in his early postings. What the market uses as money never boils down to its intrinsic value.

Whether it has value is another matter entirely. That determination is up to the market.

[bones261]

I think there's no proof that Bitcoin has zero value, how can be a great coin become have no value if many people are still want to buy this coin

If no one wants to buy use it as a medium of exchange  anymore, then it has zero worth. The chances are probably small in the short term. However, can we really determine that in 100 years, people are going to still find Bitcoin has worth?

The OP didn't really make that distinction from the start. Now that the issue is intrinsic value, I'd agree. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. Satoshi himself made that point in his early postings. What the market uses as money never boils down to its intrinsic value.

Whether it has value is another matter entirely. That determination is up to the market.

It appears the OP will never get it. Therefore, we will never have the time to explain it to him.  I suppose we all can try though. 

[Ojengonggu]

I think there's no proof that Bitcoin has zero value, how can be a great coin become have no value if many people are still want to buy this coin

If no one wants to buy use it as a medium of exchange  anymore, then it has zero worth. The chances are probably small in the short term. However, can we really determine that in 100 years, people are going to still find Bitcoin has worth?

if we think negatively about bitcoin then zero value is the truth that might occur but seeing the progress of blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies that continue to be developed and used to be used for micro and macro industrial economics I am sure zero values will not occur

[pawel7777]

...
I have heard that bitcoin has no intrinsic value countless times from naysayers but I don't think that is the case. Correct me if I am wrong but the bitcoins that are printed on paper that come out of those bitcoin atm machines with the qr code on them have every bit of intrinsic value as paper money has. As in you can use them to write on, or start a fire with ect.. matter of fact you can just carve a wallet address or put a qr code on anything you want like a bar of gold or like those physical bitcoins they sell that you can load the amount of BTC you want on it. Bitcoin does not have intrinsic value because it doesn't need to have it but anyone can give bitcoin intrinsic value by turning it into something physical they can hold if they want to.

I prefer different argument - What if some wealthy, trusted person/entity publicly and legally obligated themselves to "back" Bitcoin by exchanging 1 paperclip for 1 BTC on demand, disregard of the $ price. Now, by law, every bitcoin effectively have intrinsic value.

What would it change in practice? Perfectly nothing. Significance of intrinsic value is widely overrated.

Alternatively you could argue that the Bitcoin network (with its ability to transfer bitcoins, send messages, files, verify signatures etc) has its own intrinsic value. But to me, it makes no difference.

...
But what does he get with the 5-6 pages of replies on his thread? His inner satisfactory and that's it?
...

Could be a 'trolling' satisfaction. Could be a 'bear' trying to make his little impact in driving the price down. But if he starts a topic, shows some engagement, then go quiet, just to start same topic wrapped in different words - then I have my doubts about his intentions.

[Qurelal]

You gave us a very good example. But there is one point that is overlooked. What determines the value of iPhone, Dollars, or IBM share? You have to think about it. There is an issue in economics. Demand and supply! The value in the market is where these two meet. So, you can handle the value of Bitcoin in this way. For example, I will not sell my Bitcoin without $ 50,000. If everyone thinks so, the price rises until the buyer offers $ 50,000.

I give you a different lookout. Whatsapp doesn't produce anything and when you look at it, there's nothing material about it. But they are making huge profit year by year. After Facebook purchased, their profit getting smaller but there are so many example like Whatsapp.

I agree with your example. Everything is relative. Any value can be viewed and evaluated from different angles. Everyone has benefits from his own opinion.

[halfmil]

I think there's no proof that Bitcoin has zero value, how can be a great coin become have no value if many people are still want to buy this coin

If no one wants to buy use it as a medium of exchange  anymore, then it has zero worth. The chances are probably small in the short term. However, can we really determine that in 100 years, people are going to still find Bitcoin has worth?

The OP didn't really make that distinction from the start. Now that the issue is intrinsic value, I'd agree. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. Satoshi himself made that point in his early postings. What the market uses as money never boils down to its intrinsic value.

Whether it has value is another matter entirely. That determination is up to the market.

It appears the OP will never get it. Therefore, we will never have the time to explain it to him.   I suppose we all can try though.  

I couldn't care less about the op or trying to change his mind. My concern with the op is his arrogance and trying to spread his garbage way of thinking onto other people because that is just sad and sad people try to spread their sadness to everyone around them. I would only hope people in the future do not buy what this person is saying when they read it. Half truths are not whole truths. Think for yourself.

[fox.dn]

Bitcoins have value because they are useful as a form of money. ... In the case of Bitcoin, this can be measured by its growing base of users, merchants, and startups. As with all currency, bitcoin's value comes only and directly from people willing to accept them as payment.

[qiman]

Bitcoin technology having an open source ledger has value in itself. Value is determined by both supply and demand. As long as there is value in the product or service, or even as a store of value or money. Bitcoin will have and will retain its value. We could say this about paper money as well, that money intrinsically in it's fiat format is jsut paper. The thing is in our world value is determined by its usage and by its demand and the current supply ratio to that. We cannot say Bitcoin has no value if there is a demand against the supply.

[halfmil]

...
I have heard that bitcoin has no intrinsic value countless times from naysayers but I don't think that is the case. Correct me if I am wrong but the bitcoins that are printed on paper that come out of those bitcoin atm machines with the qr code on them have every bit of intrinsic value as paper money has. As in you can use them to write on, or start a fire with ect.. matter of fact you can just carve a wallet address or put a qr code on anything you want like a bar of gold or like those physical bitcoins they sell that you can load the amount of BTC you want on it. Bitcoin does not have intrinsic value because it doesn't need to have it but anyone can give bitcoin intrinsic value by turning it into something physical they can hold if they want to.

I prefer different argument - What if some wealthy, trusted person/entity publicly and legally obligated themselves to "back" Bitcoin by exchanging 1 paperclip for 1 BTC on demand, disregard of the $ price. Now, by law, every bitcoin effectively have intrinsic value.

What would it change in practice? Perfectly nothing. Significance of intrinsic value is widely overrated.

Alternatively you could argue that the Bitcoin network (with its ability to transfer bitcoins, send messages, files, verify signatures etc) has its own intrinsic value. But to me, it makes no difference.

...
But what does he get with the 5-6 pages of replies on his thread? His inner satisfactory and that's it?
...

Could be a 'trolling' satisfaction. Could be a 'bear' trying to make his little impact in driving the price down. But if he starts a topic, shows some engagement, then go quiet, just to start same topic wrapped in different words - then I have my doubts about his intentions.

I agree 100% I do not think intrinsic value is what makes something inherently valuable. I have come across several people like the op and it seems that most of their entire argument rests upon this point and it is the cornerstone of their belief. My point is bitcoin doesn't have intrinsic value or need it to be valuable but it can have it. They don't seem to realize this fact. And yes I agree it makes no difference in this case.

These people seem to talk about stuff they don't really know or understand. They claim to know how economics work and what has value so that gives them an authority on the subject but they never sent a bitcoin to a wallet address.

Sadly I would probably feel better if this was a troll or a bear because that would make a lot more since. The truth is there are people that feel this way and the only thing I can relate these absurd statements that they make to is higher education.

It seems that most of the people I encounter with this type of arrogance are people that have spent their entire life in school. They go to school for 17 years then they become a teacher and stay in school for another 20 or 40 years and the next thing you know they have spent their entire life in the system and have no other vision of what society is. They can't relate. They think they are somehow morally superior to people that have not spent 30+ years in school. These people are highly dogmatic. They seem to like to tell other people how uneducated they are because they spent enormous amounts of their time and energy in school and it would seem that their life would be a waist if they didn't use their intelligence to show the world how smart they are and how dumb almost everyone else is. This is just how I see it.

These people always seem to align themselves with an ideology but the ideology ends up defining who they are instead of the other way around. They cease to be an individual and become group think. They seem to latch onto anything anyone else says that furthers their cause. Almost like a anti bitcoin religion. They are never wrong about anything, although this guy surprised me when he changed his mind from value being objective to subjective.

What I have also found is that these type of people seem to be very elitist and try to speak for everyone on their behalf but they let others define themselves and for some reason they care about how they are defined it's absolutely ridiculousness.

There are people that don't have to prove anything to theirselfs and there are people that need to prove something to theirselfs. This guy is the later he is a farce.

[monster2]

A hacker can theoretically deplete everyone's wallet, or exploit all the coins available, or do other global destructive things in a short order. Therefore, Bitcoin will be worth zero if we are not careful.

Yes, if Bitcoin is found to have a serious flaw and cannot reasonably be useful as a medium of exchange and/or a store of value, then it is worth absolutely nothing since it has no other purpose. (Unless it can be fixed before serious damage occurs. Or reversed altogether.) However, I do not think the people of Venezuela take solace by the fact that at least their paper money can be used as a cheap fuel for a fire, or make paper purses, when things get bad.  

I think there's no proof that Bitcoin has zero value, how can be a great coin become have no value if many people are still want to buy this coin and still hold some of them. If Bitcoin has no value right now then why is still in the market and still fluctuates, maybe some people misunderstood the current situation of Bitcoin that's why they say it has no value. And for me Bitcoin will remain valuable.

This is a big issue lot's of investors and traders if the price of bitcoin will goes back into 0.
But i think this is impossible will happen to bitcoin,Bitcoin is already run in a many years and until now many people still investing in bitcoin.

[nightfury]

From my own point of view, bitcoin really has a value because you can cash it out into fiat money. The only difference is that it's a digital form where we can't touch it but its value is even compared to as gold. How about those people who got rich because of bitcoin?

[fxsurfer]

There is no need for much philosophy here. It is pretty easy to determine whether something has value, or intrinsic value, or utility, or whatever we wanna call it. All we need to do is answer one simple question: what an owner can do with a thing in his possession if no one wants to exchange any goods, services or money for it?

A share owner can participate in a company's profitability, cast votes in company's meetings, or be paid in event of a corporate liquidation. A food owner can meet his basic human needs. An owner of fiat currencies can get goods, services, or other property of borrowers since general non-acceptance of fiat currencies won’t make borrowers liabilities go away. An owner of a digital asset, like Microsoft Outlook or LibreOffice can send and receive email, or store, manipulate or format text. A car owner can carry people or goods between two or more places.

But, what an owner of Bitcoin can do? Well the answer is: NOTHING. Absolutely and precisely nothing. A bitcoin is a number. Number is an mathematical abstraction. An abstraction has no concrete existence, and that is the main reason why an owner of a bitcoin can do NOTHING with his possession if no one wants to exchange any goods, services or money for it.

And finally, if there is no way a thing can be utilized, then obviously it has neither value nor intrinsic value. Now you can carry on with your philosophy, mental gymnastics, and points of view to convince yourself the opposite.

[Relmarrowny]

The value of Bitcoin actually can't be calculated by the numbers. That may be the thinking of many investors to influence the market price.

[fxsurfer]

A hacker can theoretically deplete everyone's wallet, or exploit all the coins available, or do other global destructive things in a short order. Therefore, Bitcoin will be worth zero if we are not careful.

Yes, if Bitcoin is found to have a serious flaw and cannot reasonably be useful as a medium of exchange and/or a store of value, then it is worth absolutely nothing since it has no other purpose. (Unless it can be fixed before serious damage occurs. Or reversed altogether.) However, I do not think the people of Venezuela take solace by the fact that at least their paper money can be used as a cheap fuel for a fire, or make paper purses, when things get bad.  

Yes, and I do not think that people with crashed Ferrari take solace by the fact that at least their luxury sport car can be used as a cheap scrap metal when things get bad.  




So, the point of your logic is exactly what? That fiat monetary "vehicle" is BS because some corrupt governments don't know how to "drive it"?

[bones261]

A hacker can theoretically deplete everyone's wallet, or exploit all the coins available, or do other global destructive things in a short order. Therefore, Bitcoin will be worth zero if we are not careful.

Yes, if Bitcoin is found to have a serious flaw and cannot reasonably be useful as a medium of exchange and/or a store of value, then it is worth absolutely nothing since it has no other purpose. (Unless it can be fixed before serious damage occurs. Or reversed altogether.) However, I do not think the people of Venezuela take solace by the fact that at least their paper money can be used as a cheap fuel for a fire, or make paper purses, when things get bad.  

Yes, and I do not think that people with crashed Ferrari take solace by the fact that at least their luxury sport car can be used as a cheap scrap metal when things get bad.  




So, the point of your logic is exactly what? That fiat monetary "vehicle" is BS because some corrupt governments don't know how to "drive it"?

Perhaps a better analogy is to compare fiat to a Pinto rather than a Lambo. A Pinto could have been wrecked by a bad operator, but it also had a flaw, that could be wrecked no matter how good the driver was.



I'm sorry, but the fiat "proof of debt" system doesn't appear to be sustainable. Once people or governments start defaulting on the debt, it becomes a mess. Even with the collateral, the banks just cannot recoup the losses. There are remedies, but rest assured there will be much pain before the remedies take effect.

[halfmil]

Bitcoin is not just an abstract number it means something. The same way a math problem is not just an abstract number. It has information attached to it. In this since it can be a utility also.

[kissme09]

Bitcoin always has a value the 0. The current value is the result of the development that Bitcoin has experienced over time. Bitcoin continues to grow and is accepted by many traders and investors as the real value of Bitcoin, and everyone agrees with that value.

[bones261]

Bitcoin always has a value the 0. The current value is the result of the development that Bitcoin has experienced over time. Bitcoin continues to grow and is accepted by many traders and investors as the real value of Bitcoin, and everyone agrees with that value.

Apparently there is not much "agreement" since the BTC market is highly volatile. However, the fixed supply is "supposed" to mitigate this. Only time will tell if this actually continues to work. I'm still a skeptic. That's why I currently own less than 1 BTC and a few shitcoins.

[halfmil]

Bitcoin always has a value the 0. The current value is the result of the development that Bitcoin has experienced over time. Bitcoin continues to grow and is accepted by many traders and investors as the real value of Bitcoin, and everyone agrees with that value.

Apparently there is not much "agreement" since the BTC market is highly volatile. However, the fixed supply is "supposed" to mitigate this. Only time will tell if this actually continues to work. I'm still a skeptic. That's why I currently own less than 1 BTC and a few shitcoins.

I think that BTC is currently like a small raft floating in the ocean, as the ship grows larger the waves will have less effect on it. I can imagine if BTC ever grew to 200k or 300k and jumped up and down by 5k every day it would be a lot less volatile. But you are correct only time will tell.

[bones261]

Bitcoin always has a value the 0. The current value is the result of the development that Bitcoin has experienced over time. Bitcoin continues to grow and is accepted by many traders and investors as the real value of Bitcoin, and everyone agrees with that value.

Apparently there is not much "agreement" since the BTC market is highly volatile. However, the fixed supply is "supposed" to mitigate this. Only time will tell if this actually continues to work. I'm still a skeptic. That's why I currently own less than 1 BTC and a few shitcoins.

I think that BTC is currently like a small raft floating in the ocean, as the ship grows larger the waves will have less effect on it. I can imagine if BTC ever grew to 200k or 300k and jumped up and down by 5k every day it would be a lot less volatile. But you are correct only time will tell.

No, the only way BTC will get less volatile is if it actually starts having a real economy develop using it. Right now, only a few get paid in BTC for their work and can purchase all of their wants and needs with BTC. Even many people who manage to cover most of their expenses with BTC alone, actually rely on some method which converts the BTC to fiat. I am not convinced that BTC can really sustain an actual economy. Since it is limited in supply, this encourages hoarding. If too many people HODL, that is not much money flowing and makes for a poor economy. BCH and Lightning network claim to solves this by making the scaling better. However, if you just build bigger pipes, but you only have a trickle worth of water; you are still going to get only a trickle.

[halfmil]

Bitcoin always has a value the 0. The current value is the result of the development that Bitcoin has experienced over time. Bitcoin continues to grow and is accepted by many traders and investors as the real value of Bitcoin, and everyone agrees with that value.

Apparently there is not much "agreement" since the BTC market is highly volatile. However, the fixed supply is "supposed" to mitigate this. Only time will tell if this actually continues to work. I'm still a skeptic. That's why I currently own less than 1 BTC and a few shitcoins.

I think that BTC is currently like a small raft floating in the ocean, as the ship grows larger the waves will have less effect on it. I can imagine if BTC ever grew to 200k or 300k and jumped up and down by 5k every day it would be a lot less volatile. But you are correct only time will tell.

No, the only way BTC will get less volatile is if it actually starts having a real economy develop using it. Right now, only a few get paid in BTC for their work and can purchase all of their wants and needs with BTC. Even many people who manage to cover most of their expenses with BTC alone, actually rely on some method which converts the BTC to fiat. I am not convinced that BTC can really sustain an actual economy. Since it is limited in supply, this encourages hoarding. If too many people HODL, that is not much money flowing and makes for a poor economy. BCH and Lightning network claim to solves this by making the scaling better. However, if you just build bigger pipes, but you only have a trickle worth of water; you are still going to get only a trickle.

This is true, and I think BTC probably can only achieve a high dollar value if everyone starts using it. The more people that find use for it the higher the dollar value will be.

I think some things might change moving forward in the future for this to happen. If people realize that they do not have to pay income taxes if they get paid in BTC this might be a strong incentive for more people to want to get paid in BTC. The easier it becomes to pay for things with BTC the more people might use it. The most convent way I have seen people actually use BTC to pay for things is by loading BTC onto a prepaid credit card and use it just like any other card to fill their gas tanks or buy groceries ect.. as you say turn it back into fiat but I think online shopping is where it will really thrive in the future. I think there will be a future where we may not solely rely on cryptocurrency but there maybe a balance between crypto and fiat. I think this will be a gradual change in the future as more people use it the volatility will gradually change also.

[bones261]

This is true, and I think BTC probably can only achieve a high dollar value if everyone starts using it. The more people that find use for it the higher the dollar value will be.

I think some things might change moving forward in the future for this to happen. If people realize that they do not have to pay income taxes if they get paid in BTC this might be a strong incentive for more people to want to get paid in BTC. The easier it becomes to pay for things with BTC the more people might use it. The most convent way I have seen people actually use BTC to pay for things is by loading BTC onto a prepaid credit card and use it just like any other card to fill their gas tanks or buy groceries ect.. but I think online shopping is where it will really thrive in the future. I think this will be a gradual change in the future as more people use it the volatility will gradually change also.

I live in the US and you are expected to pay taxes on your Bitcoin earnings. True, you may fly under the radar for your whole life. Much like people who work by getting paid under the table get away with it. However, if you get caught, prepare to have the government extract their pound of flesh from you. You can increase your chances by using an anonymous coin like XMR or ZEC. However, if you are buying goods and services or exchanging them for fiat, there is a good chance there will be a record of the transaction that isn't anonymous. I suppose you can uproot yourself and find a jurisdiction that won't tax you. However, how many people are really interested in moving to these jurisdictions? There is also going and living on a seastead.  

[squatter]

No, the only way BTC will get less volatile is if it actually starts having a real economy develop using it. Right now, only a few get paid in BTC for their work and can purchase all of their wants and needs with BTC. Even many people who manage to cover most of their expenses with BTC alone, actually rely on some method which converts the BTC to fiat.

I'm not actually sure that will dampen volatility. It would remove selling pressure from the market since people would no longer need to convert BTC to fiat. But removing that liquidity from the market could actually make the market more volatile, since it will take less capital to push the price up.

I am not convinced that BTC can really sustain an actual economy. Since it is limited in supply, this encourages hoarding. If too many people HODL, that is not much money flowing and makes for a poor economy. BCH and Lightning network claim to solves this by making the scaling better. However, if you just build bigger pipes, but you only have a trickle worth of water; you are still going to get only a trickle.

I think you might be right. It boils down to Gresham's law. As long as bad money is still in circulation, people will have incentive to hoard BTC rather than spend it.

[cxmyifan16]

I think that btc is the best coin ever and it is necessary to invest in it now when the price is lower than it is going to be in the nearest future. To my mind, it is better to use crypto now while the market is unstable

[halfmil]

This is true, and I think BTC probably can only achieve a high dollar value if everyone starts using it. The more people that find use for it the higher the dollar value will be.

I think some things might change moving forward in the future for this to happen. If people realize that they do not have to pay income taxes if they get paid in BTC this might be a strong incentive for more people to want to get paid in BTC. The easier it becomes to pay for things with BTC the more people might use it. The most convent way I have seen people actually use BTC to pay for things is by loading BTC onto a prepaid credit card and use it just like any other card to fill their gas tanks or buy groceries ect.. but I think online shopping is where it will really thrive in the future. I think this will be a gradual change in the future as more people use it the volatility will gradually change also.

I live in the US and you are expected to pay taxes on your Bitcoin earnings. True, you may fly under the radar for your whole life. Much like people who work by getting paid under the table get away with it. However, if you get caught, prepare to have the government extract their pound of flesh from you. You can increase your chances by using an anonymous coin like XMR or ZEC. However, if you are buying goods and services or exchanging them for fiat, there is a good chance there will be a record of the transaction that isn't anonymous. I suppose you can uproot yourself and find a jurisdiction that won't tax you. However, how many people are really interested in moving to these jurisdictions? There is also going and living on a seastead.  

If you buy or earn BTC and sell it for fiat you are suppose to pay tax on the profit even though the majority of people do not. If you earn BTC and pay for stuff in BTC how can this ever be taxed when it is not converted to fiat? BTC is only taxable when turned back into fiat. On top of that if you use a privacy coin like xmr, dash, ect. like you mentioned these are completely invisible on both ends of the transaction and there is almost nothing that can be done. Even if people used a non privacy based coin and everyone did it there is really nothing anyone can do to stop it. The manpower simply does not exist to handle a situation like this. It is like trying to stop the internet itself. A police officer can not stand on every corner in the world.

From any country in the world you can open a bitcoin wallet located on a computer in any other country in the world using a tor browser and send that bitcoin to a wallet on a computer in any other country in the world. It can not be stopped or regulated. It is the people that have the power not the governments. This is also exactly why bitcoin was created in the first place, to be an alternative way of doing things and give the financial power back to the people not banks, big business and governments.

[bones261]

If you buy or earn BTC and sell it for fiat you are suppose to pay tax on the profit even though the majority of people do not. If you earn BTC and pay for stuff in BTC how can this ever be taxed when it is not converted to fiat? BTC is only taxable when turned back into fiat. On top of that if you use a privacy coin like xmr, dash, ect. like you mentioned these are completely invisible on both ends of the transaction and there is almost nothing that can be done. Even if people used a non privacy based coin and everyone did it there is really nothing anyone can do to stop it. The manpower simply does not exist to handle a situation like this. It is like trying to stop the internet itself. A police officer can not stand on every corner in the world.

From any country in the world you can open a bitcoin wallet located on a computer in any other country in the world using a tor browser and send that bitcoin to a wallet on a computer in any other country in the world. It can not be stopped or regulated. It is the people that have the power not the governments. This is also exactly why bitcoin was created in the first place, to be an alternative way of doing things and give the financial power back to the people not banks, big business and governments.

Actually, if someone earns BTC and are a US citizen, that person is supposed to pay income tax on it. Also, if someone purchases goods or services with a cryptocurrency, that person is responsible for any capital gains tax that may be due. Depending on what the BTC was worth when someone acquired it, that person could also claim a capital loss as well. Also, it is true that privacy coins are rather obfuscated when checking the blockchain. However, if someone is purchasing goods over the internet, the records on where they will be shipping the goods will not be anonymous.
The chances are pretty good that a person can get away without paying taxes. Also, the guidance is scant and the recording requirements are ridiculous. Chances are pretty good that if a person at least made the effort to pay their taxes on their cyrptocurrency transactions, the government will probably be forgiving if it wasn't perfect. However, if someone makes no effort at all to pay the taxes, they stand the risk of being one of the unlucky few that the government will make an example out of. If someone wants to take the small chance of living in back taxes hell, that is up to them. The government could literally take the shirt off someone's back if they wanted. Furthermore, they could take it a step further and take away that person's freedom after convicting them of tax evasion.

[cahbagus555]

Bitcoin have a value on the security. We put value because we trust on anything including bitcoin. Bitcoin have secure network and the data transaction can not duplicated. It must be a value of bitcoin and thats why many big investor come to market and investing their funds

[harry_crypto]

Seems interesting! But blockchain technolgologies have many uses especially when pegged to things with value like you can do with EVT!

[halfmil]

If you buy or earn BTC and sell it for fiat you are suppose to pay tax on the profit even though the majority of people do not. If you earn BTC and pay for stuff in BTC how can this ever be taxed when it is not converted to fiat? BTC is only taxable when turned back into fiat. On top of that if you use a privacy coin like xmr, dash, ect. like you mentioned these are completely invisible on both ends of the transaction and there is almost nothing that can be done. Even if people used a non privacy based coin and everyone did it there is really nothing anyone can do to stop it. The manpower simply does not exist to handle a situation like this. It is like trying to stop the internet itself. A police officer can not stand on every corner in the world.

From any country in the world you can open a bitcoin wallet located on a computer in any other country in the world using a tor browser and send that bitcoin to a wallet on a computer in any other country in the world. It can not be stopped or regulated. It is the people that have the power not the governments. This is also exactly why bitcoin was created in the first place, to be an alternative way of doing things and give the financial power back to the people not banks, big business and governments.

Actually, if someone earns BTC and are a US citizen, that person is supposed to pay income tax on it. Also, if someone purchases goods or services with a cryptocurrency, that person is responsible for any capital gains tax that may be due. Depending on what the BTC was worth when someone acquired it, that person could also claim a capital loss as well. Also, it is true that privacy coins are rather obfuscated when checking the blockchain. However, if someone is purchasing goods over the internet, the records on where they will be shipping the goods will not be anonymous.
The chances are pretty good that a person can get away without paying taxes. Also, the guidance is scant and the recording requirements are ridiculous. Chances are pretty good that if a person at least made the effort to pay their taxes on their cyrptocurrency transactions, the government will probably be forgiving if it wasn't perfect. However, if someone makes no effort at all to pay the taxes, they stand the risk of being one of the unlucky few that the government will make an example out of. If someone wants to take the small chance of living in back taxes hell, that is up to them. The government could literally take the shirt off someone's back if they wanted. Furthermore, they could take it a step further and take away that person's freedom after convicting them of tax evasion.

This is a little off topic and maybe I am wrong about that fact but I think if two people use xmr as a payment in a private party sale it’s going to be hard to get taxes from that. I also find it ironic that the government would throw someone in jail for not paying taxes on something another person says is just an arbitrary number and has zero value.

[fxsurfer]

Bitcoin is not just an abstract number it means something. The same way a math problem is not just an abstract number. It has information attached to it. In this since it can be a utility also.

In the bitcoin world, when you transfer your dollars, goods or services to someone all that has happened is numerical marking of the transfer. That is all. After the transfer you didn't become the owner of some right, claim, good, service, etc., but a visible trace is created in the database that you gave something for nothing. In the real world, when you transfer your dollars, goods or services to someone, this can also be marked numerically, for accounting/bookkeeping purposes for e.g., but you will also receive something of the same kind in return - euros, rights, claims, goods, services, etc.

So the only information attached to bitcoin is mark of the fact that you gave something of value and received nothing in return.

[gunungkembar]

maybe your explanation is difficult to understand by ordinary people like me, but I will only mention a bit of the problem of bitcoin has zero value, how can it happen if it is not worth the bitcoin price will not be as expensive as this.

[halfmil]

Bitcoin is not just an abstract number it means something. The same way a math problem is not just an abstract number. It has information attached to it. In this since it can be a utility also.

In the bitcoin world, when you transfer your dollars, goods or services to someone all that has happened is numerical marking of the transfer. That is all. After the transfer you didn't become the owner of some right, claim, good, service, etc., but a visible trace is created in the database that you gave something for nothing. In the real world, when you transfer your dollars, goods or services to someone, this can also be marked numerically, for accounting/bookkeeping purposes for e.g., but you will also receive something of the same kind in return - euros, rights, claims, goods, services, etc.

So the only information attached to bitcoin is mark of the fact that you gave something of value and received nothing in return.

The transaction contains information. When you transfer bitcoin you are the owner of that information. Information itself can be valuable and also a utility.

[eaLiTy]

I give you a different lookout. Whatsapp doesn't produce anything and when you look at it, there's nothing material about it. But they are making huge profit year by year. After Facebook purchased, their profit getting smaller but there are so many example like Whatsapp.

This is not a great example as the things you use for free will make sure they will have other ways to make money by collecting your personal data's and contact details and after the purchase by Facebook they are still collecting personal data's and will use it for advertising .
When it comes to the valuation of bitcoin , the chart OP prepared would have being a good read back in 2010 for compelling reasons and not anymore as it has grown to a stage that it will never end up having zero valuation unless there is some technical glitch.

[Jokerrrrrr]

what you dont understand is this

1. if the database was secured using a signature, (PoS) then the costs to secure it is zero. but bitcoin actually has a real hard cost to secure the database (PoW) which is commonly called mining.
in 2009. mining could be done by one persons PC and he would broadcast the database out to other and the costs were negligable.

2. over time the security increased, it became difficult to secure it with single machines. people started to calculate that the electric required to secure it was as such
if electric was 5cents an hour. and 6 blocks were created in that hour. and a block contained 50coins in 2009
then a cost per coin was $0.000016666666666667
then it started requiring more power. and thus when 10 people were using their electric only one got to secure it meaning for every 10th block a person got rewarded. thus the cost rose 0.00016666666666667
then it started requiring more power. and thus when 100 people were using their electric only one got to secure it meaning for every 100th block a person got rewarded. thus the cost rose 0.0016666666666667
then people started using GPU's and the costs rose. they started pooling their workload together and sharing the reward and the costs increased.

by 2011 the amount of electric and time put into securing bitcoin got to $1.
by 2012 the amount of electric and time and equipment needed made it cost $6

the the reward halved so that doubled the costs because there was then half the reward. so 2012 had a $12 cost
more people started to join pools and the security difficulty increased. so costs to secure it went up

by 2013 ASICS became a thing and vastly increased the security and difficulty. to a tune of $100
by 2016 the cost went up to $300
by 2017 the costs went upto $900
by 2018 costs went up above $5000

yea the costs dont match the price.. but thats speculation. thats random drama above the underlying value.
it like housing.
it cost $80k to build a house but the builders sell it for a bit more to profit so houses price in at over $100k. and then speculators add on more.

housing has real costs and so housing is not free. and yes when the PRICE hyper inflates above VALUE/COST
that excess is a bubble because the price is "inflated" like a bubble inflates.
the housing market had a 'housing bubble' not because housing is fake but the price was inflated way above value

so yes with bitcoin although we did see a $1200btc in 2013 although the value was ~$100. did not mean btc was worth zero.. its VALUE was $100 and its PRICE was an inflated bubble of $1200

so yes although we did see a $20k btc PRICE in 2017 although the value was ~$2k. did not mean btc was worth zero.. its value was $2k and its price was an inflated bubble of $20k

and now in 2018. by looking at the cost of mining. there is not much of a inflated layer(speculative layer) above value. bitcoins VALUE is actually around the $6k costs and so compared to the very thin % of speculation. is deemed good value as the price and value are close to each other.

bitcoins have a cost
housing has a cost
tulips has a cost
but the price fluctuates above cost.
you can still buy tulips even now.. astonishing right? you would think tulips are fake or not worth anything. but they are worth something.
you can still buy houses even now.. astonishing right? would think houses are not worth anything. but they are.
you can still buy bitcoins even now.. astonishing right? you would think bitcoins are fake/worthless but they they are worth something.

I think you missed the point of my opening post, which is this: bitcoin has neither price nor value. Furthermore, terms 'the price of bitcoin' and 'the value of bitcoin' are oxymorons. Let's go back to our database to see why.

_____A______     ____B____    ______C______
____Alice____      ____2____    ____iPhones___
____ Bob ____     ___20____    ____US Dollars_
___ Steve____     ___15____    ___IBM Shares_


Now, can you say that entries in column B have prices? Of course not, this would be nonsensical, since they are quantities not prices. Things outside this database (named in column C) are what have prices. But, in the case of bitcoin, there are no things outside this database that are named in column C, and this column simply contains the name of the entry in column B - number 2 is bitcoin.

____Peter____     ____2____    ____Bitcoins___

So, when you say that bitcoin has price, what you are actually saying is that quantities (numbers) have prices, which is, as we just saw, nonsensical.

I can understand you but Bitcoin is a code like a software has
And a code has both value and price like software

[Wall_Streeet]

Yes, this is true, but keep in mind that any thing is worth nothing if it is not used

[T o x i c a l]

Perhaps you are right in your reasoning. Bitcoin is just numbers on the screen. Behind them is not worth anything! It turns out that those who promote the idea of bitcoin want the digital emptiness to control our world.

[libert19]

Everything that has value, it's because we give it to him. Gold, diamond, etc have value because we are enticed by its beauty and buy them.

[bitfocus]

yes, the same rule will define your life is an oxymoron, too. Please try to use your brain when you think or write, thanks.

[kucritt]

i believe that bitcoin have zero value, but i still use bitcoin until right now, why? because i know that all stuff in this world is have zero value, the cause that makes the there are have value is because demand, demand in bitcoin is high so it makes the price and the value is increasing and high

[tarable]

I think that btc is the best coin ever and it is necessary to invest in it now when the price is lower than it is going to be in the nearest future. To my mind, it is better to use crypto now while the market is unstable

all know that BTC is the first coin that appears and has a high value but at the moment I think all types of coins are experiencing a problem that is not the stability of the current price. therefore a good change is now desired by many people.

[carlisle1]

So if bitcoin has zero value,then what are you doing here?why staying in crypto community if this is your stand stupid?This only mean one thing that you are still here to gain because of this fud and bringing misleading issues to make bitcoin price more lower so you can purchase as many as you can,please stop this dude,people now here are mature to know whats right and wrong

[franky1]

160+ posts and many still squabbling

the value is the underlying cost.
the utility (which some call 'values' note the s at the end which means its a different word& definition) is better to be called desire to separate desire/utility 'values' from financial value.

yes if bitcoin had no utility, there would be no desire and no one would want to pay a certain price for it.
so this is why bitcoin cant be a store of value(fiscal) without also having desire values(utility)

however the desire/utility is decided above the cost. which in different people view is a different level of desire dependant on how much they want/need(demand). vs how much is available to meet that demand(supply).
this desire(values) in short is the speculative layer ontop of the acquisition cost layer(value)

there is a symbiosis. that plays out. if something has utility it has desire to use/want it. it then has a cost to acquire it. and then the price is the temporary drama layer above the cost layer that people fight over depending on demand/supply

bitcoin cant be just a store of value simply because of store of value. it needs utility.

bitcoin has a underlying value layer below the price. which is the support layer

people will always try finding the cheapest way to get something they desire. so when its too costly to mine it, they buy it. when its too costly to buy it, they mine it.
there is a market/mining dynamic that builds up a underlying value

unlike PoS crap coins that have no cost to mine it... crapcoins like PoS have no underlying true cost thus they rely purely on speculation. which is why their PRICE is always so much lower than PoW coins

[noormcs5]

I think that btc is the best coin ever and it is necessary to invest in it now when the price is lower than it is going to be in the nearest future. To my mind, it is better to use crypto now while the market is unstable

Even for a moment if we say that bitcoin is useless and will have no real value, yet it is worth to keep bitcoin with us. Why ? Because the whales are making great profit from it and we can also earn good money on every pump of the coins.