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> nothing in the world has intrinsic value, including gold This is incorrect. Both Western Europe and uncontacted pre-Colombian America considered gold extreme

by CPLX 7y ago

> nothing in the world has intrinsic value, including gold This is incorrect. Both Western Europe and uncontacted pre-Colombian America considered gold extremely valuable for use as jewelry. That’s what intrinsic value means, people value it for what it actually is. And nobody says bitcoin is exclusively used for crime. In practice it is used both for crime and financial speculation.

drcode 7y ago
This is a circular argument, as the earliest uses of jewelery was likely as a store of value (your tribe could trade jewelery for food with a neighboring tribe in emergencies) There exists no objective argument that gold is somehow more beautiful than say, a flower or a rainbow... We only think of it as "beautiful" because of its money-like properties (i.e. it's scarce, durable, easily carried & transferred) This suggests to me that gold is valuable precisely for the same reasons as Bitcoin, not because of some magical notion of "intrinsic value" that eludes other money alternatives. (Yes, I'm aware gold has some minor uses in electronics manufacturing, but then lots of people are currently building electronic devices with Bitcoin wallets, so both have uses in this regard...)
javert 7y ago
In my experience, overwhelmingly, intrinsic value means something has value "just because." That's how most people discussing monetary concepts use the term. Also true in philosophy. It's basically a magical thinking/religion type of idea. If you have a citation to the contrary, like in an economics textbook, I'd be interested to see it, and I'm open to that possibility. But I would still think that most people are using the term the way I described [unless you have a citation about that...]. Today, the price of gold is overwhelmingly determined by its use as a financial instrument. Not because it's pretty and not for its industrial uses. To the best of my knowledge. I don't know how to actually measure this.
h0l0cube 7y ago
> That’s what intrinsic value means, people value it for what it actually is. People value gold for it's scarcity. If there was limitless supply of gold, no-one would be interested in buying it for a high price. It's the same for diamonds, and why De Beers sought to control the supply of mines and synthetic means of production, which creates an artificial 'scarcity'. This is also why cubic zirconia is not prized for jewelry, despite it's similar aesthetic qualities to diamonds.
- javert 7y ago
  Scarcity alone is not enough to make something valuable. The value of gold comes from the fact that is has been a financial hedge (safe haven, at least to some degree) for a very long time, and presumably will continue to be for a very long time. I'm not sure if that is a correct use of "financial hedge" but it seems to get the point across. Gold is not necessarily a good store of value, but its downside is certainly much more limited than a lot of other things.
arisAlexis 7y ago
I wouldn't want to commit a crime and get my money in something on a transparent ledger anyone can track.
scotty79 7y ago
> ... considered gold extremely valuable for use as jewelry. That’s what intrinsic value means, people value it for what it actually is. Oh. So that's why most gold in the world was made into jewlery and is held by jewlery afficiandos. /s Yes. Gold has some intrinsic value but to determine how much that intrinsic value influences the price it is enough to look at how much of gold is used for its intrinsic value. Intrinsic value of bitcoin is its ability to transfer value to any place on earth through internet in reasonable time at affordable price without trusted third party. You can see how much value of bitcoin comes from that by looking at how much bitcoin is used for this purpose. The rest comes from the same place that the rest of gold value comes from, scarcity and durability.
- lazylizard 7y ago
  I thought india n china , especially india, really bought gold as jewellery. https://www.gold.org/goldhub/data/gold-supply-and-demand-statistics https://www.gold.org/goldhub/data/gold-supply-and-demand-sta...
- javert 7y ago
  There is no such thing as intrinsic value.

by CPLX 7y ago

drcode 7y ago

This is a circular argument, as the earliest uses of jewelery was likely as a store of value (your tribe could trade jewelery for food with a neighboring tribe in emergencies) There exists no objective argument that gold is somehow more beautiful than say, a flower or a rainbow... We only think of it as "beautiful" because of its money-like properties (i.e. it's scarce, durable, easily carried & transferred) This suggests to me that gold is valuable precisely for the same reasons as Bitcoin, not because of some magical notion of "intrinsic value" that eludes other money alternatives. (Yes, I'm aware gold has some minor uses in electronics manufacturing, but then lots of people are currently building electronic devices with Bitcoin wallets, so both have uses in this regard...)

javert 7y ago

In my experience, overwhelmingly, intrinsic value means something has value "just because." That's how most people discussing monetary concepts use the term. Also true in philosophy. It's basically a magical thinking/religion type of idea. If you have a citation to the contrary, like in an economics textbook, I'd be interested to see it, and I'm open to that possibility. But I would still think that most people are using the term the way I described [unless you have a citation about that...]. Today, the price of gold is overwhelmingly determined by its use as a financial instrument. Not because it's pretty and not for its industrial uses. To the best of my knowledge. I don't know how to actually measure this.

h0l0cube 7y ago

> That’s what intrinsic value means, people value it for what it actually is. People value gold for it's scarcity. If there was limitless supply of gold, no-one would be interested in buying it for a high price. It's the same for diamonds, and why De Beers sought to control the supply of mines and synthetic means of production, which creates an artificial 'scarcity'. This is also why cubic zirconia is not prized for jewelry, despite it's similar aesthetic qualities to diamonds.

javert 7y ago
Scarcity alone is not enough to make something valuable. The value of gold comes from the fact that is has been a financial hedge (safe haven, at least to some degree) for a very long time, and presumably will continue to be for a very long time. I'm not sure if that is a correct use of "financial hedge" but it seems to get the point across. Gold is not necessarily a good store of value, but its downside is certainly much more limited than a lot of other things.

arisAlexis 7y ago

I wouldn't want to commit a crime and get my money in something on a transparent ledger anyone can track.

scotty79 7y ago

> ... considered gold extremely valuable for use as jewelry. That’s what intrinsic value means, people value it for what it actually is. Oh. So that's why most gold in the world was made into jewlery and is held by jewlery afficiandos. /s Yes. Gold has some intrinsic value but to determine how much that intrinsic value influences the price it is enough to look at how much of gold is used for its intrinsic value. Intrinsic value of bitcoin is its ability to transfer value to any place on earth through internet in reasonable time at affordable price without trusted third party. You can see how much value of bitcoin comes from that by looking at how much bitcoin is used for this purpose. The rest comes from the same place that the rest of gold value comes from, scarcity and durability.

lazylizard 7y ago
I thought india n china , especially india, really bought gold as jewellery. https://www.gold.org/goldhub/data/gold-supply-and-demand-statistics https://www.gold.org/goldhub/data/gold-supply-and-demand-sta...
javert 7y ago
There is no such thing as intrinsic value.