Scarcity is one of the leading factors of Bitcoins value

[sunsilk]

Bitcoin being scarce is what most of the investors are looking after it right now. Before it was it's decentralization and anonymity on the talks but a lot of people has already accepted it and right now, we're looking on it at the other important aspects.

A person that doesn't know bitcoin or just heard it that it has a limited supply of 21 million would probably think that only 21 million people can own it. Needless to say about the whole explanation of owning it on decimal places, a very limited supply is like having a limited or rare collectors item that can be valued more than it has before.

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[Asmonist]

Its really the reason. Scarcity meaning the demand is high and the supply is low. I think the number of people acquiring bitcoin is increasing. While the supply is steady or stagnant since investors are holding it to wait for the best highest price. As soon as it didn't happen the more the price is not rising and the people are holding on it. As soon as they will sell it. That's the time the value changes.

[franky1]

A person that doesn't know bitcoin or just heard it that it has a limited supply of 21 million would probably think that only 21 million people can own it. Needless to say about the whole explanation of owning it on decimal places, a very limited supply is like having a limited or rare collectors item that can be valued more than it has before.

its not like having a batch of beanie babies where there can only be 210,000 ever made where there is no division of a beanie baby
heck i know of a 50pence piece(physical coin) that had just a couple millions coins minted. but that doesnt suddenly make it worth $8000
its like having 21million sky scraper size objects made of lego. but people can own thousands of lego
doesnt mean lego is rare, scarce

blocks of lego are not scarce. everyone can have them.

yea people say if you have a KG of lego the price you pay at retail to get 1kkg is worth more than oil
yet people dont think of it as bing just a few hundred thousand tonnes of lego

the 21mill coins is just a user interface basket/bucket term. its not actually about the amount of sharable units.
its been said many times in many tops and people keep forgetting the simple truth

the 21m number has been a fact the whole 10 years it wasnt originally 210mill that went down due to being more scarce over time.
21m has always been 21m

what has actually decided how volatile the price. is not the current 18m in circulation but the actual 1.2m in exchange hoard that are actually on the market order list actually affecting the supply/demand ratio

the other factor is mining cost. no one sells a minted coin for less than cost. thus they st a price or hoard until the price is right. if the cost was too much they stop making and selling and instead us the funds to buy as markets are cheaper than making. thus by buying instead of selling. they make the price rise.
as the supply demand ratio favours the demand

[Cityhunter123]

The deficit is exactly what makes the price of bitcoin so high, so I believe that in the future it will cost much more.

[makolz26]

Its really the reason. Scarcity meaning the demand is high and the supply is low. I think the number of people acquiring bitcoin is increasing. While the supply is steady or stagnant since investors are holding it to wait for the best highest price. As soon as it didn't happen the more the price is not rising and the people are holding on it. As soon as they will sell it. That's the time the value changes.

Yes, it is actually increasing based on the data and in a matter of fact there's already 1% of the total population who has bitcoin address, based on the data research of experts, with this we can see and tell that it is still very little, so  we still have long way to go, and since the supply is fixed and the demand is rapidly increasing, so imagine how much value it could have in the future.

[Nhor1011]

Bitcoins maximum and limited supply is the reason why it is valuable base on the law of demand and supply but i think the word scarcity is not suitable which means bitcoin supply is not enough. Bitcoin has a limited supply but it doesn't mean that it will run out of supply. It will become more and more valuable as the time goes by because the demand keep on increasing while the supply is limited.

[franky1]

Bitcoins maximum and limited supply is the reason why it is valuable base on the law of demand and supply but i think the word scarcity is not suitable which means bitcoin supply is not enough. Bitcoin has a limited supply but it doesn't mean that it will run out of supply. It will become more and more valuable as the time goes by because the demand keep on increasing while the supply is limited.

no MARKET price is affected by MARKET suply which is estimated at 1.2m coins. not the 21m coins.

the price does not move depending on the 1800 coins made yeach day but by the MARKET volume
lets word it another way

the price can TANK FAST is satoshi found his 20,000 private keys to release his 1m hoard all in one go
so could the MTGox hoard tank the price too

and those numbers dont affect the 21m but do affect what the MARKET supply has
again the 21m has ben a known figure for all 10 years
the 1800 coin a day is a known thing for a 4 year period.

neither the 21m nor the 1800 coin has direct affect on the market supply

[Murat]

   
When the number is 21 Million then it doesn't mean that there is any scarcity, I think sometimes supply creates its own demand so Bitcoin itself is a demandable product to this system because of having a worth value, I also think that Bitcoin is decreasing day by day as well as it's mining in these days, so the number is becoming almost equal, that's why supply is not the main issue to get scared of this platform anymore, I think the main scare factor is the price volatility which is the most effective factor in this system so far for me. sometimes people's got scared of volatility so they start panicked sell and in this way, This platform gets vulnerable.

[Wind_FURY]

Wrong again. How can Core "implement"? Core makes makes the code, but who puts it into effect? Core?

core already implemented many things.

No. Anything can only be put into effect through consensus. If Core can "command", Segwit would have activated without drama.

P.S
devs are already doing it LN but LN's millisats are not compatible with BTC's sats. which is why the pegging locked transactions are at play between the TWO SEPARATE NETWORKS
(an LN payment is not a BTC transaction)

Building of an off-chain layer doesn't need consensus. You don't like it? Don't use it.

Plus there's no "peg", no IOU, no promise to pay in Lightning. Stop lying.

[BigBoom3599]

Scarcity in itself doesn't create value though. You can have as little supply as you want, but if there is no demand, there won't be any value.

I'd argue that the thing that gives Bitcoin value is its brand name, its first mover advantage. Everyone has heard of Bitcoin, but almost no one has heard of, say, Ethereum or any other altcoin.

Compare Bitcoin to the thousands of shitcoins that are also scarce and have limited supply, but are worth (almost) nothing because they have no brand name. It's not that they are technically worse than Bitcoin, some may even be better than Bitcoin with some cool features. Yet they aren't more valuable than it. Simply because Bitcoin was the first.

[TheGreatPython]

We don't need to wait to feel how the situation it would be as 86% of bitcoin have already hit the market. Of the 21 million bitcoins in total, more than 18 million are already in supply. Bitcoin generation after the 2020 halving would further decrease. So we can assume bitcoin would be traded similar to the way we are having now. The decrease in mining generation should complement by the increase in price to retain the miners.

From the time that the best halving will end, I think that the supply of bitcoin ill really start getting hard and as mining off the coin decreases also, the value of bitcoin will start increasing so much which I think this is why many of the people you see are still holding their coins for no until that time when bitcoin will become very high before they start using it for payment.

I know that it is good to use bitcoin for payment, but who would want to miss put off this reliable coin increase when the time come. I know that none of us will be alive when the last coin is being mined and all those generations then, especially the ones that we have left our coins for are the one that will fully enjoy it then when bitcoin value rise to about $1 million.

[karanggatak]

scarcity occurs due to the increasing number of requests while the number of goods desired is limited. this is what makes an item scarce and makes it a valuable item and its value will also increase. the number of bitcoins is limited to only 21 million coins and each year the number of bicoin that can be mined decreases but the demand for bitcoin continues to increase. this is what causes the price of bicoin in the future will be more expensive. with this method bitcoin is protected from inflation which usually occurs with fiat money.

[Ailmand]

21 million bitcoins and not to mention the amount of bitcoin that had been lost by some users, sent to a wrong/non existing address, unaccessible wallets, lost private key, and etc. That would make a great difference. As bitcoin adaptation grows the demand will be high and applying the basic conceppt of supply and demand, the price will surely rise.

[boris singer]

scarcity occurs due to the increasing number of requests while the number of goods desired is limited. this is what makes an item scarce and makes it a valuable item and its value will also increase. the number of bitcoins is limited to only 21 million coins and each year the number of bicoin that can be mined decreases but the demand for bitcoin continues to increase. this is what causes the price of bicoin in the future will be more expensive. with this method bitcoin is protected from inflation which usually occurs with fiat money.

this factor can also move upside down if 60-70% of bitcoin is owned by several large groups, and only gives users the opportunity to take the rest. bitcoin will continue to move in large fluctuations associated with manipulation. Scarcity will make bitcoin a higher value but most people will be more dominant against altcoin. Bitcoin will face a crucial problem in volume spread.

[wxa7115]

21 million cap in my opinion is not about scarcity and price but instead it is more about having a clear maximum supply and a clear predefined plan for distribution of that supply. this design was specifically chosen to fix the problem with fiat system where there is absolutely no cap and no predefined plan of supply creation. the government can print as much money as they like and that causes inflation among a lot of other economical issues.

as a side product of that, we get the scarcity and with a limited supply and an increasing demand we get the rising price. of course it should not be forgotten that the demand is an important part of that rise otherwise we have altcoins with much smaller supply that are not only worth less than bitcoin but they are losing value as time goes by even though they are supposedly scarce too.

The scarcity without a doubt plays a role in how valuable bitcoin really is, but something could be very scarce and have no value at all because there is no demand for it, bitcoin combines almost all the characteristics of gold that makes it such a great form of money and then adds many other characteristics that makes it even better than gold.

Unlike gold we know exactly how many bitcoins are going to exist and not only that we have a very precise idea of how many bitcoins are going to be created each day, each month and each year, we could not ask for a more predictable coin even if we wanted to, and things get even better when you consider that unlike gold bitcoin is digital and you can carry it around without bringing attention to yourself and without having to give any explanations of why you are carrying so much bitcoin with you.

[Vertex_ICO]

21 million cap in my opinion is not about scarcity and price but instead it is more about having a clear maximum supply and a clear predefined plan for distribution of that supply. this design was specifically chosen to fix the problem with fiat system where there is absolutely no cap and no predefined plan of supply creation. the government can print as much money as they like and that causes inflation among a lot of other economical issues.

as a side product of that, we get the scarcity and with a limited supply and an increasing demand we get the rising price. of course it should not be forgotten that the demand is an important part of that rise otherwise we have altcoins with much smaller supply that are not only worth less than bitcoin but they are losing value as time goes by even though they are supposedly scarce too.

You definitely have a point there. Scarcity definitely does combat inflation, and we know Bitcoin was invented as a response to the global recession in 2008 (as well as for other reasons). With that being said - you're spot on in that we have to acknowledge that demand drives up the price.

[JessicaVL]

Of course! Bitcoin's limited supply was designed to influence adopters perception since from the beginning of its inception - that it is bound to be very rare according to an estimated predefined time frame.

An analogy for this is that we could liken Bitcoin's supply to very rare mineral like Diamond - assuming it has also a limited supply of 21 kilos and knowing that it will reach its max supply in due time, then most of us would likely expect its price will go up due to its rarity and would do our best just to get a little bit of it!

Now this assumption would all be realized as long as there is great demand for it, because without demand, its price will eventually fall.

Here are related discussions which I think are relevant to the OP:

Stock To Flow Model: Modeling Bitcoin's Value with Scarcity
wrote a paper about the convergence of bitcoin toward the stock-to-flow model

Absolutely! Naturally supply drives demand, and Bitcoin's limited supply does have influence over the price. As we reach the total supply cap, it's very likely that Bitcoin's price wil climb. We're currently at about 18 million, so let's see what happens.

[JessicaVL]

It is indeed a factor. The impression that it sends to people is that it is not unlimited and that after years and decades the total supply will remain the same. This is in great contrast to fiat which is unlimited and even created or printed out of reasons that are either hidden or beyond the comprehension of the majority of the common folks.

In addition to the limited total supply of Bitcoin is the fact that a significant chunk of it is already lost or forgotten beyond recovery, and that the mining reward is also reduced into half every four years. Scarcity is obviously playing a vital role in the rise of Bitcoin's price value.

You're absolutely right - scarcity plays a huge role in combatting inflation. Which is one of the reasons why Satoshi Nakamoto decided to develop it in the first place (global recession). It'll be interesting to see what happens when mainstream adoption occurs - how will demand influence the price then?

[JessicaVL]

Bitcoin is simply said a scarce asset with functionalities that would meet the "specifications" of a global mainstream currency. I always like to give this example to people: recent statistics show that there are over 36 million millionaires in the world which means that Bitcoin should be worth more than $1,710,000/unit just through the law of supply and demand( taking into account that each of these millionaires only want to buy 1 BTC). In this calculation aren't included the considered lost BTCs ~4M.

That's an interesting example, thanks for sharing! Bitcoin's scarcity definitely does drive demand, and also combats inflation. The fact that it happens to, as you said, meet the specifications of a global mainstream currency in terms of functionality is also important when it comes to mainstream adoption.

[GideonGono]

scarcity occurs due to the increasing number of requests while the number of goods desired is limited. this is what makes an item scarce and makes it a valuable item and its value will also increase. the number of bitcoins is limited to only 21 million coins and each year the number of bicoin that can be mined decreases but the demand for bitcoin continues to increase. this is what causes the price of bicoin in the future will be more expensive. with this method bitcoin is protected from inflation which usually occurs with fiat money.

this factor can also move upside down if 60-70% of bitcoin is owned by several large groups, and only gives users the opportunity to take the rest. bitcoin will continue to move in large fluctuations associated with manipulation. Scarcity will make bitcoin a higher value but most people will be more dominant against altcoin. Bitcoin will face a crucial problem in volume spread.

It all comes down to the basic principle that is the higher the demand the higher the price and also the lower the supply the higher the price. Bitcoin is a good manifestation of this principle wherein the price surge so high because it both has high demand and low supply. Also, this I think is what makes Bitcoin to survive compared to fiat in times of crisis. On top of that, what made the value of Bitcoin rose so high is because of the features like how decentralize it is and being peer to peer which made the people stay.