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Comment by tensor | Hacker News Reader

The USD is no longer backed by gold and you could say it also has no intrinsic value.

It's backed by an army and a government, along with the trust of the entire world. These things ensure value a lot better than being back by gold does.

it will always have value as long as it in the only thing the IRS accepts for taxes due

It's the only thing the IRS accepts for taxes, it's the only thing that Saudi Arabia accepts for oil, etc. There's many good reasons for the dollar to have non-zero intrinsic value.

That's still not an intrinsic value: it's a consensus value.

Intrinsic value is the value it has even if it is not thought of as a currency or unit of trade.

> Intrinsic value is the value it has even if it is not thought of as a currency or unit of trade.

That's like, your definition dude.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/intrinsicvalue.asp

> The intrinsic value is the actual value of a company or an asset based on an underlying perception of its true value including all aspects of the business, in terms of both tangible and intangible factors. This value may or may not be the same as the current market value.

I don't think I agree that this is what people mean when they say "bitcoin has no intrinsic value but gold does." I think that it is a laymen's statement and they are really referring to value or utility outside of being currency. They are not meaning to reference fundamental analysis in finance.

That's my point precisely. Maybe you should be telling that to the other guy :-P

And Bitcoin will always have value as long as people are willing and able to trade it. Your point, which is valid, is that the long-term future of the United States and the IRS as a wealthy nation is almost certainly more safe than the long-term future of Bitcoin, but there is no inherent difference between the two, merely a difference of scale.

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