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Things don't have value on their own. They have value to someone in some context. Your Apple has value to a hungry person because it can be eaten, it has value

Things don't have value on their own. They have value to someone in some context. Your Apple has value to a hungry person because it can be eaten, it has value to an apple producer, or merchant, because it can be sold, and it has value to a truck driver because it needs transporting. It's not an intrinsic property of the apple. It is entirely a result of the plans and hopes of those individuals who deals with the apple. You can of course counter that all value is derived from the hunger of the apple eater, why else would the driver, merchant and producer bother? And that's where something like Bitcoin could enter the picture. It establish value in the other direction. It has value to the apple eater because it can be used to buy an apple, to the truck driver because it buys fuel, to the merchant because it buys more apples, and to the producer because it buys a well earned vacation trip. The intrinsic properties of being of a fixed supply, securely transferable, highly divisible and cheap to store and move around makes it useful as an intermediate token of value exchanged. That said, I do think the high volatility of Bitcoin takes away much of is usefulness as a currency. In this regard it's to much like gold. A future replacement should probably have an elastic supply like the credit based currencies we are used to dealing with.

Ologn 11y ago
> And that's where something like Bitcoin could enter the picture. It establish value in the other direction. It has value to the apple eater because it can be used to buy an apple Right...but this can be said about any commodity. If I own a new iPhone, or a bar of gold, or what have you, it won't take me long to sell those and buy apples. But iPhones, gold etc. have inherent value and use, Bitcoin has no use value. > fixed supply most commodities > highly divisible, cheap to store some commodities have these properties...like precious metals > securely transferable fortunes are wired from bank to bank around the world every day Gold is a useful commodity. For wiring, for filling teeth, for other purposes. It is also durable, divisible, uniform, portable, and all those things which make a commodity useful as a currency. Bitcoins are not a useful commodity, they are a hash number ultimately. When the game of musical chairs ends, people flock to commodities that have had value for thousands of years, like gold. They have inherent usefulness and value. Bitcoins don't.

Ologn 11y ago

> And that's where something like Bitcoin could enter the picture. It establish value in the other direction. It has value to the apple eater because it can be used to buy an apple Right...but this can be said about any commodity. If I own a new iPhone, or a bar of gold, or what have you, it won't take me long to sell those and buy apples. But iPhones, gold etc. have inherent value and use, Bitcoin has no use value. > fixed supply most commodities > highly divisible, cheap to store some commodities have these properties...like precious metals > securely transferable fortunes are wired from bank to bank around the world every day Gold is a useful commodity. For wiring, for filling teeth, for other purposes. It is also durable, divisible, uniform, portable, and all those things which make a commodity useful as a currency. Bitcoins are not a useful commodity, they are a hash number ultimately. When the game of musical chairs ends, people flock to commodities that have had value for thousands of years, like gold. They have inherent usefulness and value. Bitcoins don't.