All this lost and irrecoverable money is a good basis for valuation.
Also, one question: where are all these people who claimed that Bitcoin was a good inflation hedge ?
Lost coins are not support for intrinsic value. Use-value that doesn't depend on the market is intrinsic. Value from perceptions and perceived scarcity (even if the perception is driven by actual scarcity) is extrinsic.
But I don't think lost coins supports the existence of even extrinsic value; it might be an extrinsic >1 multiplier on value from some other source by increasingn scarcity, but it won’t provide a baseline of value if nothing else does.
Same place they always were: making bad takes in relative anonymity with zero consequences for being wrong. And that’s fine: you should be able to say dumb things anonymously with no consequences.
The consequences come for the people who make investments on the basis of anonymous shitposts
I think society is desperate for inflation hedges so perhaps it’s a strong marketing tool regardless of how accurate it might be.