Can Bitcoin ever become its own unit of value?

[Crypto Library]

It's sounds like a stupid question, but it's been a tangle in my head for a long time.

Bitcoin definitely implemented a peer to peer ecosystem in this regard, which basically gave us financial freedom and at the same time deflated fiat currency and at the same time anti-bank. And bitcoin it's self has become the most valuable virtual asset in the world. But even then we use USD i.e. fiat currency to measure the value of bitcoin.

Now my question is that will bitcoin itself become an exchange value without fiat currency in the future? Or will fiat currency always exist to explain?

I would like to note here that this topic is not for comparing "bitcoin vs fiat currency", here, the main goal is to discussing bitcoin as a unit of account in the future.

[Chibit01]

Its value will always be explained with fiat just like every other asset. We know it's valuable, but for it to be spendable among those who want to use it aside from just playing around with it for experimental purposes.

Now my question is that will bitcoin itself become an exchange value without fiat currency in the future? Or will fiat currency always exist to explain?

We have a world where majority of trade is carried out in bitcoin, value is not attached to USD just purely on volume calculations, what units is needed for one to be able to purchase something.

[Ambatman]

regard, which basically gave us financial freedom and at the same time deflated fiat currency and at the same time anti-bank.

Bitcoin didn't deflate Fiat if that's the word
Fiat currency remains inflationary since their supply can be expanded.
It's more of an alternative and it's not an Anti bank perse
A method in which a third party or intermediary isn't needed.

will bitcoin itself become an exchange value without fiat currency in the future? Or will fiat currency always exist to explain?

Theoretically it's possible and Fiat doesn't have to be abolished for it to happen.
Gold was a unit of account years ago too.
Bitcoin already has unit of denomination and what matters is it getting adopted which is also tied to factors like volatility.

Currently the dollar is the dominant unit of account doesn't mean there aren't others like the Euro.
Bitcoin can also function similarly rather than an house been priced for $20million it could be for 20BTC.

[crwth]

You know that it's definitely hard to commit to it. I remember the signature campaign before on staying "BTC only" didn't last long. It converted them into fiat because we live in the $ world.

It's not gonna happen IMO. It's hard. Imagine seeing prices in 2500 sats or something for a coffee lol. It looks big and might not be a good sight. It should be in sats or mBTC or something, but I don't think it would happen because the world sees in that monetary way, the $ way.

[BALIK]

If you look at El Salvador, you’ll understand that making Bitcoin legal tender and making Bitcoin as real unit of account are not same thing.
USD is still the important reference currency all over the world.

Again, I don’t believe that fiat will last forever.
You know, unit of account has changed many times in history of money. It is not something new concept.

Today, if we say something costs $100, and then say it’s 0.0015 BTC, then BTC is still essentially being valued in USD.
But if any merchant says this product costs 150000 sat and his accounting, wages are all in sats. Then Bitcoin is truly acting as unit of account.
If in future most of the people accept Bitcoin as a reference for purchasing power and BTC market becomes much deeper and more stable then USD could become the reference for Bitcoin.

[Rockstarguy]

Now my question is that will bitcoin itself become an exchange value without fiat currency in the future? Or will fiat currency always exist to explain?

I think this will be possible if the government adopts Bitcoin as a major currency; then Bitcoin can be a measuring unit for the price of things. As of today, fiat still exists and Bitcoin is measured in fiat.

However, anyone can choose Bitcoin as a unit of value; for example, if you own a property and want to sell it, you can decide to fix the price in Bitcoin instead of in fiat. Bitcoin also functions as a store of value, which means it can be measured by other currencies.

[knuckey]

Fiat currencies will always exist for Bitcoin, and without them, Bitcoin feels less valuable. It's not that Bitcoin can't have its own value, but that Bitcoin's value is less valuable without fiat.
The digital age will become increasingly sophisticated. Honestly, I believe there will be projects in the future that will be globally accepted and have their own value.

[Merit.s]

Since bitcoin isn't just a currency but also an asset, you wouldn't know the value if not in fiat unit. USD is the most popular currency used worldwide and it's easy for you to know how much is an item in USD than in bitcion because it's not everyone that knows the value of bitcoin and how to convert it immediately, to USD since it's not everyone that own bitcoin.

Though, in future we might see this come to pass when stuffs price tags will be in Sats.

[aoluain]

Its an interesting question, I immediately thought - shure BTC1 will always be BTC1 but that
doesnt answer the OP's question.

If I am selling my car and want Bitcoin as payment, how many Satoshi's do I ask for without
automatically calculating it from FIAT?

if everything else in the world from eggs to property is priced in FIAT, how can I spend, exchange
and/or trade Bitcoin without relating the value to FIAT?

FIAT would have to disappear instantly and be replaced by Bitcoin and everyones memory to
be erased of everything FIAT related in order for the OP's scenario to work I think.

[Cryptomultiplier]

Now my question is that will bitcoin itself become an exchange value without fiat currency in the future? Or will fiat currency always exist to explain?

You thoughts isn't out of place because Bitcoin is a currency that is wildly known and almost adopted globally.
However, I believe Bitcoin may have to get to the hyperbitcoinization stage or rather become known as the true Bitcoin standard before it satisfies your question.

Already, Bitcoin is a store of value and can be used with some tools as a medium of exchange, but before it becomes its own unit of value as you asked, it must have attained some level of steadiness in price value and use case with world wide adoption, without volatilities always as a factor of its current pricing at any time.

[Ayers]

Now my question is that will bitcoin itself become an exchange value without fiat currency in the future? Or will fiat currency always exist to explain?

If you want something to serve as unit of account then its value must needs to be relatively stable. Today, Bitcoin is worth $60000, tomorrow it could be $55k, and the day after that $65k.

Think about it. If any company prices a cup of coffee at 0.0001 BTC, Bitcoin's volatility could cause the coffee's real value to swing dramatically within just a single week.

Businesses, lenders and employers all need stable unit for pricing good, writing contract, issuing loan and paying salary. Because of Bitcoin's fixed supply of 21 million coin and its highly speculative nature, it simply can't provide that kind of price stability.

[legiteum]

All currencies can have one of three uses:

1. As a store of value (and investment).

2. As a means of exchange.

3. As a means of measurement.

I think the first two are obvious, but the third usage is one many people miss--and it's the reason why the US dollar will be around virtually forever.

The reason is because humans don't easily switch to a new measurement system. A great example if the metric system in the USA: after 75 years of trying, we're still on the old system that is based on a large king's foot.

Why? The reason is threefold:

1. There is a massive amount of infrastructure in the world based on the USD measurement standard. In other words, prices.

2. Any new measurement system must become intuitive to its users in order to be useful, and things like feet, inches, and USD are all things we started learning about when we were children. It's very hard to duplicate a lifetime of experience for every individual. Any typical American over the age about 10 years old knows about how long an inch and a foot are, and they also know about how much value a dollar is. They know that 7 feet would be very tall for a person to be, 2 feet with be very short, and that 25 USD for a candy bar would be very expensive. They just know this intuitively, already built in to their brains.

3. There's no good reason to change. Europeans complain about feet and inches (because they were never trained on the system), but they work just fine. In other words, there is no significant "ROI" involved with switching to the metric system.

Today, everything is denominated in USD because everybody knows USD (or whatever country currency for the given country--although many internationally also know the USD standard). There's also no reason to change this. With computers, we can display any price of any commodity or currency in USD instantly by looking up the realtime exchange rate.

So as a unit of measure, USD (and probably a few other major country currencies) are going to be around forever.

Of course that doesn't mean USD will be used for the other two uses in the future, and both of those are rapidly falling away. It's getting increasingly rare (in the USA anyhow) for individuals to ever hold any significant USD because they have easy access to other options that will perform better. Hence they get USD, move it to some investment, then get that USD back when they need to exchange it for something. Bitcoin is, for instance, one of thousands of investments somebody chooses for this purpose (and it's almost always a mix of many different things).

As for second usage, things like stablecoins are replacing USD to simply move value from one place to another--although there are thousands of other solutions as well. USD plays a relatively small role in this today (i.e. moving physical pieces of paper around). Indeed, only a small portion of the amount of actual USD in the world is represented in physical cash. The rest is simply a store value held on a computer somewhere.

So will BTC be a unit of account in the future? No chance. That's going to be USD and a few others... until the end of time.

[Dareo]

Well, there is already a topic on this discussion: Will bitcoin be a unit of account?

Now my question is that will bitcoin itself become an exchange value without fiat currency in the future?

Actually it is mainly a matter of habit and practical use. Even today most people get paid and do business in fiat, so it is easy to express the value of Bitcoin in that familiar unit, this does not mean that Bitcoin is a failure, but rather that the main unit of account of the current economy is still fiat, which is why we use it for comparison.

However I think it is not impossible, but for that many more businesses will have to set the price of goods and services directly in BTC or satoshi, It is not enough to just accept payment in Bitcoin, people will also have to think in Bitcoin units. As long as most businesses first set the price in USD or other fiat and then convert to BTC, Bitcoin will not be a complete unit of account. So, practically it is not possible.

[Mia Chloe]

~snip

First off understand that value is actually relatively. You deduce the value of something relative to another. For instance a dollar is just a dollar but you can only measure it's value when you scale it against items it can buy or can't. A dollar can get a bottle of soft drink water and some snacks 10 could do more that's why 10 is more valuable.

So same way you can't expect fiat to valuate itself, same way you really can't expect bitcoin to do the same. 0.1 bitcoins mean nothing without being able to weigh it against something.

[Nwada001]

This can be done but will be a lot harder to implement since everything is now generally valued using fiat. For one to use Bitcoin, that trade will have to be between Bitcoin users who already know what value is attached to 1 BTC and not for an ordinary trader to comprehend; it will take a whole lot to make this happen.

Fiat currencies will always exist for Bitcoin, and without them, Bitcoin feels less valuable. It's not that Bitcoin can't have its own value, but that Bitcoin's value is less valuable without fiat.
The digital age will become increasingly sophisticated. Honestly, I believe there will be projects in the future that will be globally accepted and have their own value.

Saying it’s less valuable without fiat is as if fiat were adding some value to it; the fiat value, which is used to present how much bitcoin is worth, is just an easy way of identifying its purchasing power, nothing more.

[Cleanshit]

Personally I would say Bitcoin can be a true unit of account but this can be if we change the perspective of how we view price. There is two difference between, something that cost  $100 and to convert the amount to BTC, and having to say that a thing cost 200,000 SATs without you confirming of checking the dollar value, you see that in this second case you see unit of account because Bitcoin use as a unit of account. volatility and adoption should probably be a biggest obstacle.if business do start to pay salarys or having to keep account in SATs or BTC this will make the need of measuring everything in fiat reduces. Making fiat not to necessary be a reference for Bitcoin  

[Upgrade00]

It theoretically can become a unit of measure where it is used to value labour and commodities that are real things with value in the real world.

If we can measure how much bitcoins would get you a cup of coffee or a bicycle, or an acceptable day's labour, it would have value of itself without the need to pair it against Fiat. For this to happen bitcoin has to become much less volatile than it is now which would mean losing the speculative value that it has.

[lionheart78]

It's sounds like a stupid question, but it's been a tangle in my head for a long time.

Bitcoin definitely implemented a peer to peer ecosystem in this regard, which basically gave us financial freedom and at the same time deflated fiat currency and at the same time anti-bank. And bitcoin it's self has become the most valuable virtual asset in the world. But even then we use USD i.e. fiat currency to measure the value of bitcoin.

Now my question is that will bitcoin itself become an exchange value without fiat currency in the future? Or will fiat currency always exist to explain?

Bitcoin is already an exchange of value.  Anyone can set their goods in Bitcoin, disregarding fiat currency.  You are saying Bitcoin value measurement is dependent on USD, but then we can also say it the other way around.  

I would like to note here that this topic is not for comparing "bitcoin vs fiat currency", here, the main goal is to discussing bitcoin as a unit of account in the future.

Bitcoin being money is also a unit of account itself. Why?  Because goods, services, or any products can be set to Bitcoin.

[Ndabagi01]

Now my question is that will bitcoin itself become an exchange value without fiat currency in the future? Or will fiat currency always exist to explain?

I would like to note here that this topic is not for comparing "bitcoin vs fiat currency", here, the main goal is to discussing bitcoin as a unit of account in the future.

What I can equate out from this is that, unless bitcoin is not an asset that can be invested into and works just like the fiat currency does without any unit value attached to it, then it can be said to become a unit of value of its own.

Assets that can be spent, invested into and faces volatility must all have to be paired with a unit of value which is the fiat in this case before they can be considered a suitable asset for investment.

Looking back at the historical price value of bitcoin, it is already a convincing fact to invest into it, if it was a unit of value and not paired against any currency, I don’t think people will find interest and invest in it.

[ColdLava40]

It's sounds like a stupid question, but it's been a tangle in my head for a long time.

Its a nice question to look into actually.

Buh considering that most assets are pegged to a value equivalent in fiat makes Bitcoin no different. XAU/ USD, BTC/USD. These equivalents gives it a useful comparison in the market.

To me, fiat will have to but not always maybe in the future like you said. For now, If people wants to use or invest in Bitcoin, we need to understand it's worth in fiat. It reminds me of the trade by barter system. You have to give in return something that's worth what you are offering for exchange.