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The inherent value of any currency is based on these 5 factors. 1 scarcity - limit on supply, difficult to counterfeit 2 fungible - all coins are the same 3
by andrewtbham 9y ago
The inherent value of any currency is based on these 5 factors.
1 scarcity - limit on supply, difficult to counterfeit
2 fungible - all coins are the same
3 divisibility - 1 / 100 millionth of a bitcoin is smallest unit. crypto is high divisible, an important feature if there is deflation.
4 durability - dollar bills get old and torn up. whereas, computers and drives crash and you can lose your private key.
5 transferability - cash and gold require physical transfer.
banking: ACH, credit cards, wire transfers have fees.
bitcoin: global internet transferability. transaction time should be less than 10 minutes. fees were low initially but have been going up due to network congestion.
However they main thing that makes a currency valuable is willingness to exchange it for goods and services. That is the useful part about the bitcoin "bubble." It serves to increase adoption of it's usage.
edit: formatting and note about losing keys mention in comment below
- colordrops 9y agoRegarding durability, because of cryptocurrency's distributed nature, a better parallel would be lost private keys and transactions that destroy coins rather than drive crashes.