[2018-0-03] Bitcoin is worth nothing and Backed by Nothing. Really?

[ruthbabe]

Bitcoin is worth nothing and Backed by Nothing. Really?

Skeptics and critics have continuously attacked Bitcoin as worthless and a useless speculated object backed by nothing. I once came across one Bitcoin investor who out of frustration of losing all his investment sided with the popular line by critics that “Bitcoin is worth nothing and Backed by nothing.” I understand that Bitcoin is a very risky investment but to agree that the digital asset is worth nothing is impossible. When you ask me, any fiat currency we use today is worthless if it is true that bitcoin is worthless.

What gives gold its value? I believe many people agree that gold is not worthless. I also think that many people agree that crude oil is not worthless. It is worth noting that gold and crude oil were once useless in some time back until man found some value in them.

Gold was “neutral stuff” in some part of the continent. It had no value to them at all, until they realized that they could use it for many good things. This realization caused many people to go after gold. However, gold does not have an infinite supply. Gold is subjected to scarcity. So the many people demanding it for its function and the fact that gold is finite in supply gave it a value which most people are aware.

What am I trying to say? The value of an asset is determined by scarcity and utility. Bitcoin has a finite supply of 21 million. Bitcoin has a production cost. In other words, people who mine it do not mine it for free. They exchange their computing power for the digital asset.

It is quite funny when people criticize Bitcoin because they think it is backed by nothing. The truth is that there is an ongoing debate on the fact that the U.S dollar is also backed by nothing. When it happens that the U.S dollar is backed by nothing, does it make it less a currency? Of course not. In 2009, a website called “Seeking Alpha” published an article which contained the official statement of the U.S treasury which stated that the U.S dollar is backed by nothing. It is argued that dollar stopped being backed by gold since 1933. Even though the article was taken down from the website, it can still be accessed with the internet archives of “way back machine website.”

If this is true, then what keeps the U.S dollar going? The answer is “the confidence of the people.” The confidence that the U.S dollar is a standard of deferred payment and store of value makes it valuable and not less of a currency.

Bitcoin does not need to be backed by anything to be recognized as a valuable asset or whatsoever. All it needs is the confidence of the people and the recognition that it can be used everywhere for payment of goods and services.


Source:  https://zycrypto.com/bitcoin-is-worth-nothing-and-backed-by-nothing-really/

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[cryptofonia]

If I ready to buy Bitcoin for $0.1 then it can't be worthless

[BitHodler]

If I ready to buy Bitcoin for $0.1 then it can't be worthless

I'm buying Bitcoin at current levels, and there are more smart minds doing the same, so it's even less worthless right now.

Everything has value as long as we believe it does--are willing to pay up for it--accept it as means of exchange. Bitcoin checks all boxes and the amount of people thinking the same keeps growing.

No coiners will always find a way to trash Bitcoin, and I don't expect it to change, not even when Bitcoin becomes super mainstream. There are still skeptics talking about gold like how people talk about Bitcoin.

Bitcoiners in the same way trash altcoins. It all comes down to whether or not it's valuable to the person directly. In case it isn't, it by default is painted off as useless, scam, and so forth....

[Irvinn]

Bitcoin is really not backed by anything, but one cannot say that it is worth nothing. If it provides the transfer of funds to any part of the globe in a relatively short time, it can already be defined in our material world as a service, which is expressed in a certain value. Nor can it be believed that gold and crude oil do not cost anything. Both gold and crude oil can be directly applied and useful properties derived from them. Gold is a metal that does not rust and therefore just as a metal has a certain value. Crude oil already has the ability to burn and therefore can also be useful for people even without treatment. So almost everything has its original value.

[erikoy]

Yeah we absolutely know about this but people or users had agreed the market price of bitcoin now to which it was already reflected on coinmarketcap.com. The reflected market price for bitcoin were basing from the demand and the supply of bitcoin in the market.

[buwaytress]

I don't buy very much but I'm earning almost chiefly in Bitcoin (or some other form of similar asset class that I then sell for Bitcoin), and have been for over a year now so yes, clearly there are idiots like me who think it's worth my time and efforts to work and choose to get paid in Bitcoin instead of other currencies.

And I spend every week, sell every 2 or 3 weeks, so clearly, merchants are accepting Bitcoin for goods and services, and other idiots like me are taking my coins for some money.

Worth nothing? Think the numbers and facts speak for themselves.

Backed by nothing? How about the safety and security with which I make every spend, the comfort of knowing my coins are going exactly where I want them to, without any chance of getting hijacked?

[Kakmakr]

A lot of people are willing to pay lots of money for digital items like skins for their weapons or a piece of virtual property, but when they are confronted with Crypto currencies, they suddenly do a 360 and tell you that Bitcoin is worthless.

The moment when you convert fiat to digital tokens, it has a value. <Why would people pay for these tokens, if it had no value to them?> The difference between in-game currencies/tokens and Bitcoin are the fact that the value of these tokens are determined by the software developer and not on supply and demand like with Bitcoin.  

[milewilda]

Backed by nothing? How about the safety and security with which I make every spend, the comfort of knowing my coins are going exactly where I want them to, without any chance of getting hijacked?

If they do just look closely with this single line then they might really changed up their minds or would somehow agree.Criticisms are normal but putting a conclusion isnt really applicable at all on the current state
on what we are seeing now with BTC.

If Bitcoin is worth nothing then we arent seeing $3000+ price as of this moment.

[davey76]

Bitcoin is worth $66,202,868,118 at the moment 

[Wasimalik]

If I ready to buy Bitcoin for $0.1 then it can't be worthless

You are true and be carefull there many big players who wondering to pay nothing for a full bag of btc.

[coolcoinz]

The best explanation for me was the comparison to foods or drinks. If you don't like caviar it's worth nothing to you. If you had a can of it you would throw it away because you don't eat it. Another person will be willing to pay a lot of money for it and feel great eating it. Your view on things is very rarely unbiased and it's important to look from a different perspective. I love Bitcoin and it's valuable to me despite what someone else will say, but I'm not trying to put this opinion in other people's mouths. I'm fine with them not being interested in decentralized, private money.

[greeklogos]

If I ready to buy Bitcoin for $0.1 then it can't be worthless

You are true and be carefull there many big players who wondering to pay nothing for a full bag of btc.

How do they plan to manage that? Only by stealing I guess.
If bitcoin would cost nothing the price on the exchanger would be a zero, logically.

[Slow death]

Skeptics and critics have continuously attacked Bitcoin as worthless and a useless speculated object backed by nothing.

bitcoin is a decentralized currency, something that gives people the opportunity to be free, this already causes banks and certain governments to be scared, they know that the larger the number of people are free, the smaller the power of this small group that enslave many people. We should not worry about these guys who say that bitcoin it's useless

[1Referee]

I use Bitcoin almost on a daily basis, and I noticed around me that some people actually prefer to be paid in Bitcoin rather than PayPal or whatever else.

I wanted to pay someone $100 through PayPal recently and couldn't complete the transfer because my balance wasn't enough due to the $7 fee it wanted to charge me. I had to top up my balance to complete the transaction because the other side didn't wan't to deal with anything other than PayPal.

This is something where Bitcoin shines, and I am certain that it will attract more and more users as PayPal & Co don't think it's necessary to lower their fees.

[pixie85]

I use Bitcoin almost on a daily basis, and I noticed around me that some people actually prefer to be paid in Bitcoin rather than PayPal or whatever else.

I wanted to pay someone $100 through PayPal recently and couldn't complete the transfer because my balance wasn't enough due to the $7 fee it wanted to charge me. I had to top up my balance to complete the transaction because the other side didn't wan't to deal with anything other than PayPal.

This is something where Bitcoin shines, and I am certain that it will attract more and more users as PayPal & Co don't think it's necessary to lower their fees.

It's even worse if you are transferring money to someone who uses a different currency. They take fees and exchange rates into account and there are additional fees for them exchanging the money at their rates. As a result if you send 1000 dollars to someone who uses euro you can expect to lose at least $50. At the same time a Bitcoin transaction will cost you less than $10 if you include exchange fees.

[gabbie2010]

All this campaign calumny against bitcoin as being worthless and being backed by nothing is making bitcoin more popular I see no reason why a digital currency with huge recapitalization value worth billions of dollar with huge volume traded daily becoming an object of ridicule, tarnishing of image of bitcoin had not worked so far and efforts in undermining its importance by warren buffets and other top business tycoons had proved abortive.

[BitHodler]

I wanted to pay someone $100 through PayPal recently and couldn't complete the transfer because my balance wasn't enough due to the $7 fee it wanted to charge me. I had to top up my balance to complete the transaction because the other side didn't wan't to deal with anything other than PayPal.

PayPal has gotten worse last year when they changed their fee structure from a fixed 1% F&F payment option to one that's more dynamic--more expensive. Fees depend per region, but it has gone up to 4% for me.

The only reason I still use it is because it offers buyers protection which might come handy in certain situations, and the fees for G&S payments are passed to the receiver of the funds, which favors me as buyer even more.

Based on their buyers protection, which more often than not negatively affects sellers, people will keep using it because it gives them the security they need to not be ripped off on eBay or other marketplaces.

[mich]

I don't understand these types of statements considering I purchase goods almost weekly from different websites.
To take it even one stop further, I regularly buy Bitcoin and other crypto from bank-backed exchanges.
So to say that Bitcoin is worth nothing and backed by nothing is a far fetched statement!

[1Referee]

The only reason I still use it is because it offers buyers protection which might come handy in certain situations, and the fees for G&S payments are passed to the receiver of the funds, which favors me as buyer even more.

Based on their buyers protection, which more often than not negatively affects sellers, people will keep using it because it gives them the security they need to not be ripped off on eBay or other marketplaces.

I'm sure that there will be a time where even Bitcoin payments will have that level of consumer protection. If there is money to be made, financial services will hop in to claim their cut of the pie, that's always how it works. It will be a service that comes with a steep fee I would assume, but hey, if people want to tap into these features to obtain more certainty when it comes to online purchases, they will go for it.

On top of that, buyers with PayPal not paying any fees isn't really the case here. The fees that people assume to not be paying are calculated in the price of what they buy already, which also applies to payments through credit card and whatnot. This gives people even more incentive to use Bitcoin if stores refund them ~2% due to the fees they save by accepting Bitcoin. Good times are ahead.

[bL4nkcode]

If Bitcoin is worth nothing then we arent seeing $3000+ price as of this moment.

Bitcoin will never reach 1 USD first if it does.

If there's no single person/company/business use bitcoin as a means of something then it can't be backed by nothing.