Valuation of what does make sense though? Other than A=A, all valuations are artificial.
With Bitcoins the value is only set by an artificial demand. There is nothing left over, if demand stops. You can't eat a Bitcoin. There is no limitation on creating new cryptocurrencies. It is like the million dollar homepage. It was once valued with a million dollars but I doubt, anyone would pay any significant amount for those pixels now. Why? Well, yes, there is only one million dollar homepage, but if there was any demand, you could create a similar page for a few dollars of effort.
“Value” is measured by what someone paid. Nothing more, nothing less. If I buy an apple from you for $5, that means both of us valued the apple at $5. The end.
To understand how meaningless the notion of intrinsic value is, ask yourself what the intrinsic value of water is? Drinking it? Bathing with it? Swimming in it? Cooking with it? Watering a garden with it? Washing a car with it?
Different people value water for different uses at different times for different amounts... there is no dollar value intrinsic to the water itself.
Water for washing your car or watering your garden is relatively cheap, drinking water is not. Because for drinking water you need to get a cleaner source or spending effort to clean it. In many regions, tap water is perfect drinking water (and usually relatively expensive) in other regions not. Bottled water is yet more expensive because of the effort of bottling and transporting the bottled water. Of course you have effects like expensive French bottled water in the US, but that nonwithstanding bottled water is more expensive than tap water which is more expensive than river water.
When someone says "this thing is valued at $5" it means someone traded or is willing to trade $5 for that thing. It doesn't have anything to do with what you can use that thing for.
Yes, water is "valuable" as something to drink. That has little to do with what someone paid for some water.
Exchange rate volatility is problematic. My solution is mainly to have more Bitcoin than I'd ever use, unless its value crashed. That works for me because I accumulated most of it years ago, and I'm too paranoid to cash out.
Otherwise, I'd need to distribute among multiple resources that were relatively stable, or didn't move together.
>My solution is mainly to have more Bitcoin than I'd ever use
In other words, you're hoarding.
But not mainly in a speculative way. Fundamentally, there's no safe way to move enough to matter without raising flags. As in, "where did that money come from"? I really don't want to go there.
And the freakiest thing is that I have no idea what sorts of investigations some of my personas might be part of. I'm a decent guy, myself. And much of my Bitcoin came from writing, mostly for IVPN.
But I've also done some consulting with other anonymous cowards. I'm adamant about not wanting to know anything about what clients are doing. But I gotta wonder, sometimes.
So anyway, keeping online and meatspace finances totally separate is just part of my OPSEC.
No currency "has value". For dollars, it's the US government.
Bitcoin has value for three main reasons: 1) it can be used to buy stuff online, and can be anonymized; 2) it's not controlled by governments; and 3) it's a popular speculative asset.
The first two aren't about novelty. Sure, if something else comes along that does those things better, people will shift. But none of the existing alternatives has managed that yet.
The third does have a huge novelty component. And personally, I wish that all the bloody speculators would just piss off. But whatever, I can live with them. And free money is cool too.
try going a step further and ask yourself why is bitcoin "popular in the trade of illegal goods and for paying ransomware".
hint: there's a thing that is even more "popular in the trade of illegal goods and for paying ransomware" - cash.
hopefully it's enough of a nudge in the right direction.
Ransomware obviously uses Bitcoin because it's reliable, and can be anonymized. And people use Tor for child porn and "illegal" drugs because it's secure and ~anonymous. They're popular because they work. And in a way, they're canaries for decent privacy lovers.
ugh.. did you misread my comment? i was talking about cash.
Also, while ransom is paid in cash, these kind of crimes are not very common because the police can intercept at the cash exchange. It is really the ability to send money over the internet but off any official channels, which enables ransomware. Also, like with any other commerce, performing illegal purchases gets much easier with the internet, in this case facilitated by cryptocurrencies.
i don't disagree, i'm trying to help you understand that what (allegedly) makes bitcoin popular for ransomware and illegal transactions is a set of properties that are also shared with cash.
either your argument is that those properties are evil and you're in favor of cashless society where big brother is always in control of all money flows - in which case that's the root of our disagreement and we can stop there.
or you value those properties but you're worried about all the illegal activities enabled by them, in which case bitcoin should be way down on the list of your concerns, top spot being held by the almighty USD.
And we have strict limits on cash to provide a stop of a complete abuse of it for criminal activities. Cash transactions over a certain limit have to be logged, there are physical controls at the borders as well as searches. So having a suitcase of cash cannot be concealed easily.
Yes, especially with local crime, there are cash transactions. That is regretteable, but cannot be avoided. The difference is, that physical cash servers a very important practical purpose: making legit payments easy. From using vending machines with coins to just paying for your groceries, you can do that easily with cash.
However Bitcoins don't seem to have a large practical values beyond the illegal actions. I am not aware of a large econommy based on Bitcoin transactions. It also can be shown that the pure time required to perform these transactions would be a hurdle. So most of Bitcoin is just speculation, the practical aspect largely based on the shady uses.
Anyway, ransomware operators request payment in Bitcoin because it's much less hassle than mailing cash. And there's much less risk of theft by dishonest postal workers.
But with thorough mixing and other good OPSEC, Bitcoin can be as anonymous as cash. So that helps protect ransomware operators from arrest. I think that we all agree on that.
However, you seem to see that as a negative for Bitcoin. That it can be used for such horrible things. But I see it as a stress test for using Bitcoin ~anonymously. If assholes infecting people with malware can use Bitcoin safely, that inplies that decent anonymous cowards like me can also safely use Bitcoin.
And if some of them get busted, there's the chance that investigative methods will be revealed, and so I can tweak my OPSEC to deal with them.
Another key benefit is evading all that bullshit about limiting cash transactions. It's not that I'm a criminal, it's just that I don't acknowledge government authority.
you're not seeing the forest behind the trees. bitcoin like cash is permissionless, private and fungible (to some extent). these properties enable illegal activities both in cash and in bitcoin. with cash it happens in face to face exchanges, with bitcoin it happens over the network.
> we have strict limits on cash to provide a stop of a complete abuse of it for criminal activities
yeah, that's why there's definitely no illegal activities going on involving cash. /s
> Bitcoins don't seem to have a large practical values beyond the illegal actions
uninflatable, scarce commodity/currency and transaction platform that is impossible to censor. you sure have a high bar for something having "practical value"...
the largest practical value of bitcoin is that i have full ownership of my money, not some ephemeral record in some bank's database which can be destroyed/modified by bank's employees or devalued by monetary policy.
> I am not aware of a large econommy based on Bitcoin transactions.
that you're not aware of it could simply mean that you never looked for it.
Well, and that was the difference I was pointing out to. Bitcoin allows unchecked transactions about the network, this is not possible with cash and international cash transfer is strictly regulated - and when done electronically, carefully watched. That is the significant difference.
yeah, that's why there's definitely no illegal activities going on involving cash. /s
no need for that snotty remark, I have written myself that there are criminal transactions with cash, but they are limited by physical proximity.
uninflatable, scarce commodity/currency and transaction platform that is impossible to censor. you sure have a high bar for something having "practical value"...
it is actually deflatory, which is a bad thing for a currency. This basically bans all commercial use.
the largest practical value of bitcoin is that i have full ownership of my money, not some ephemeral record in some bank's database which can be destroyed/modified by bank's employees or devalued by monetary policy.
Not only do Bitcoin exchanges have a horrible track record about keeping your coins secure, it is grotesque that you fear the monetary policy for your "moneys value", when Bitcoin can collapse to 0 any time enough people lose interest in it for speculation.
I've been using Bitcoin since it first went public. And I have never used an exchange. They want to know too much, for one thing, with all that KYC bullshit. And as you say, they can't be trusted.
But I have used less formal exhange services. And although I've been ripped off a few times, it's worked well for the most part.
> ... it is grotesque that you fear the monetary policy for your "moneys value", when Bitcoin can collapse to 0 any time enough people lose interest in it for speculation.
You keep saying that, but the data doesn't support it. Just look at Bitcoin price history. I used a nine-month moving average for price. And plotted log price, to clearly show older prices.[0]
After the peak in early 2013, price bottomed at ~50% of peak, until the next peak. After the peak in late 2013, price bottomed at ~20% of peak, until the next peak. And the bottom was about twice the previous bottom. After the peak at the end of 2017, price bottomed at ~50% of peak, during early 2019. And the bottom was ~17 times the previous bottom.
So there hasn't been any "collapse to 0".
that is a very arbitrary difference for you to ignore that there are orders of magnitude more illegal transactions happening in cash than in cryptocurrencies. also "let's ban cryptocurrencies because bad people do bad things" is the same argument as "let's ban cryptography because bad people communicate about bad things".
> it is actually deflatory, which is a bad thing for a currency. This basically bans all commercial use.
gold is strictly speaking deflationary - there is limited amount of it to be mined and bar some large deposit discoveries, "emission rate" will be going down. what gold lacks to be succesfull in economic activities is convenience of not having to transport it around along with transactions, which is something bitcoin has.
deflationary nature argument is not very convincing to me, because there is a feedback loop between valuation and liquidity. the less liquidity there is in an assets - less valuable it becomes, incentivizing hoarders to keep spending.
> Not only do Bitcoin exchanges have a horrible track record about keeping your coins secure
oh boy.. you're arguing about something you haven't spent any significant time researching. it's rule #1 and rule #2 of cryptocurrencies - if you don't own the private key - it's not your crypto!
you've picked literally the worst strawman to attack here. horrible track record of exchanges is exactly the kind of issues of existing financial system that bitcoin prevents, just under magnifying glass:
- when you send crypto to the exchange you trade something you own for a record in a database, but bitcoin can solve that problem with payment channels and multisignature wallets - something you cannot do with traditional currencies without trusting some third party
- there is little to no transparency about actual holdings of cryptocurreny - again, bitcoin solves that problem because you can cryptographically prove how much you have access to with digital signatures, something you again cannot do with traditional currencies without trusting a third party
- exchange's assets can be seized by government where it resides - something that bitcoin solves by design - nobody can take your bitcoins without knowing your private key, again not possible with traditional currencies - also by design
> it is grotesque that you fear the monetary policy for your "moneys value", when Bitcoin can collapse to 0 any time enough people lose interest in it for speculation
guess what, USD can go to 0 for all the same reasons Bitcoin can, plus one more - printing trillions of it. can't print trillions of Bitcoin by design, which is exactly why i and plenty others value it.
hopefully i gave you something new to consider.
The Federal Reserve doens't simply print notes and drive them over to the banks. There's an asset exchange that takes place.
do you seriously not see the circular nature of your argument?
there is no "intrinsic value", there is only price at which a buyer meets a seller.
the whole idea of "intrinsic value" is that it is not tied to "needs and wants", because "needs and wants" is just another way of saying "market" and on a market there is only speculative value.
"intrinsic value" as a concept is used to derive valuation of a company based on it's assets, liabilities, etc - fundamentals, as opposed to market capitalization. taking the concept of intrinsic value out this context is meaningless because nothing in the universe has intrinsic value.
You are saying that there are no infinite buyers and sellers, you are right but there are no infinite bitcoins too.
You are taking an example of beef cause you thing it has intrinsic value but let me tell you that in some states in India if they find you eating beef, they will even punish you for that.
Everything's value is relative based on the usage, and usage creates demand.
As conclusion, if community of libertarian will grow, Bitcoin's value will rise because demand will rise, if not, it is likely to fail.
But nothing is black and white, people will take sides and we will always have haters and lovers. There will always be enough bitcoin to serve people they want to use and not enough for the value to become zero.
A 1000 tonnes mountain of cow poo has near zero intrinsic value (perhaps even negative because it's a biohazard; people and government(s) are gonna get pissed and tell you to clean it up). That does not mean it didn't cost anything to create it, it was probably somewhat expensive to set up.