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73 sats \ 20 replies \ @justin_shocknet 30 Sep \ parent \ on: What about Bitcoin are you too embarrassed to admit you still don't understand? bitcoin
Arguably gold never had inherent value until electricity was invented to give it utility as a conductor
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All were otherwise valued as ornament. Gold was used for data storage too.
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Cloud services / software, Bitcoin is a hosted database
Accreditation / membership, Bitcoin is a network
Value is subjective, so ornaments have no "inherent" value as you put it, only utility is inherent value, and history is rife with non-utility
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That makes it easier then to compare I think...
Stones/shells didn't start out as money, but people collected them for ornamental purposes, then money emerged from that bootstrapping by mineral spergs
Bitcoin started out as a toy collectible much in the same way, even though it was designed as money, value still had to emerge from an otherwise valueless ornament for spergs
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Yes I look at it as it was designed to make the jump from toy to money, it couldn't be money day 0 because money is emergent
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Perhaps spergs can see the inherent value in things normies take longer to see.
Like the first predetermined and strictly limited total issuance of any commodity in the known universe.
A thing that absolutely nobody wants is going to be difficult to get many people to agree to use as money. Whereas, something that is already perceived as being valuable can easily slip into being used as a money.
So maybe the issue is with the term "inherent" which usually implies that a thing has value no matter who you ask (or what their circumstances are).
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well, but you are hitting on something that's different about Bitcoin.
I think it's connected to the chicken-egg problem of no people spending bitcoin because no merchants accepting bitcoin because no people are spending bitcoin...
This problem should have happened to Bitcoin's value in the beginning. Nobody sees it as valuable because the only possible value is if other people see it as valuable and nobody saw it as valuable yet...
I suspect the early blackmarket uses are what jump started it: satoshi dice, silk road, early markets where you could bet or buy "shares" in companies.
Now we've reached the bitcoin is widely seen to be valuable point, but we still haven't crossed over into people widely accepting it. I like to think SN plays a role in being one of the vanguard forces pushing for monetary use of Bitcoin. It's the second most exciting thing about SN.
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Bitcoin protocol includes the ability to make p2p payments without reliance upon a third party.
Unlike fiat money where you need a bank to facilitate payments...or in the case of cash a central bank to issue and back the coins/notes.
This, maybe, gives Bitcoin inherent value?
As per link from @DarthCoin -
https://fee.org/articles/what-gave-bitcoin-its-value/
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The strictly limited issuance of Bitcoin, is a thing of beauty also, perhaps, to those so long enslaved by the fiat debt slavery bankers cartel?
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You didn't have strictly limited issuance initially - ie it was not decentralized for a few years and the limit could not be assured.
To be clear: I'm not saying bitcoin needs this initial inherent value property to be great money, but there's something to know about why bitcoin doesn't need this property.
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Total issuance was set from day one at 21 million.
As was the programed decline in rate of issuance toward zero.
Thus strictly limited total issuance was set from day one.
Certainly it was easier to mine when just one or two people were mining but even Satoshi had to make some effort/expenditure of computing power even if small, to accumulate his sats.
As more people expended more effort to acquire value rose.
The self fulfilling cycle of FOMO.
From the start the inherent value was in holding the transfer/access keys to a token with a strictly limited total issuance...something that had never existed in the known universe before.
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There were initially equally few people with any incentive or motive to change the consensus.
As value grew and more clamoured to mine, security increased proportional to value of the network.
At first only cryptography geeks and freaks would value the largely abstract inherent value in possessing the cryptographic keys to a token on a blockchain that most people considered of no value...but those few understood the potential of a strictly limited total issuance...in a world of fiat debt slavery debasement and corruption.
'there will only ever be 21 million'
As time, understanding and FOMO built up, those keys and the abstract transfer value they provide access to have increased in value.
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