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Yep and that's Bitcoin's network effect. There is demand for Bitcoin. 2017 was the year of retail interest, 2021 is the year of institutional interest. It's eas

Yep and that's Bitcoin's network effect. There is demand for Bitcoin. 2017 was the year of retail interest, 2021 is the year of institutional interest. It's easy to see that the price is now uncorrelated with the retail interest, using Google Trends as an example. [0] > there is no particular reason to believe that people will be more willing to pay over $45k to update ledgers to indicate possession of a particular alphanumeric string in a couple of decades' time than they are now Absolutely. Nobody can know with certainty what will happen but if you compare Bitcoin with something like gold you immediately realize that Bitcoin is better in any possible way. There is literally no reason to think that Bitcoin won't replace gold in terms of market capitalization (except for the 7.5% actually used in manufacturing) [1]. [0] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F05p0rrx https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge... [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-industry-sector-share/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in...

notahacker 6y ago
> Nobody can know with certainty what will happen but if you compare Bitcoin with something like gold you immediately realize that Bitcoin is better in any possible way. Again, this is cargo-cult nonsense. Gold does not take the electricity resources of a large country to render it secure and make transactions possible. People cannot vote for a greater gold supply or fork gold, or create an alternative gold which lacks the need to use the electricity resources of a small country to secure it but is in every other respect functionally identical. Gold is pretty to look at and can be made into jewellery, not intrinsically worthless. Gold's price might be pushed higher than that intrinsic value by interest in its use as a store of value, but it's driven by millenia of desire to possess gold as a status symbol and currency substitute across a vast array of cultures, not a 12 year bull run propped up by counterfeit dollars and increasingly unrealistic claims that it will replace currency. There is literally no reason to believe that Bitcoin will ever 'replace gold in terms of market capitalization'
- iexplainbtc 6y ago
  > Gold does not take the electricity resources of a large country to render it secure and make transactions possible. Except it does [0]. > Gold is pretty to look at and can be made into jewellery, not intrinsically worthless. The first argument is laughable, the second is simply incorrect. Oil is intrinsically worthless. It's worth something only if you can turn it into fuel, plastic or some other product for which there is demand. Same goes for gold. And although it's true that you can turn a piece of gold into a piece of jewelry that piece of jewelry will decrease in value over time unless it gains intangible value because of its history. Try buying a gold necklace and selling it the next day at the same value. Nothing has "intrinsic" value. All value is relative. [0] https://medium.com/@hillpot/bitcoin-vs-gold-which-hurts-the-environment-more-75193863dfb6#:~:text=(1)%20Gold%20Mining%20Requires%20More%20Energy%20Dollar%2Dfor%2DDollar&text=The%20bitcoin%20network's%20global%20power,132%20terawatt%2Dhours%20per%20year https://medium.com/@hillpot/bitcoin-vs-gold-which-hurts-the-....
  - maclured 6y ago
    > Oil is ... worth something only if you can turn it into fuel, plastic or some other product for which there is demand. Same goes for gold. You clearly don't understand what "intrinsic value" means if you believe this. The very fact it can be fabricated into something of value gives it some intrinsic value.
    - iexplainbtc 6y ago
      > The very fact it can be fabricated into something of value gives it some intrinsic value. That's a plain contradiction. Oil is valuable because there is demand for products manufactured with it. In a world where there's no demand for gasoline, plastic or any other derivative of oil the "intrinsic value" of oil is zero, which proves there is no such thing as intrinsic value that isn't relative to a market. Just to be clear we're discussing commodities and not company stocks, for which there is a very specific definition of "intrinsic value", according to fundamental analysis at least. I'm pretty sure you're the one who's confused, but ok.

notahacker 6y ago

> Nobody can know with certainty what will happen but if you compare Bitcoin with something like gold you immediately realize that Bitcoin is better in any possible way. Again, this is cargo-cult nonsense. Gold does not take the electricity resources of a large country to render it secure and make transactions possible. People cannot vote for a greater gold supply or fork gold, or create an alternative gold which lacks the need to use the electricity resources of a small country to secure it but is in every other respect functionally identical. Gold is pretty to look at and can be made into jewellery, not intrinsically worthless. Gold's price might be pushed higher than that intrinsic value by interest in its use as a store of value, but it's driven by millenia of desire to possess gold as a status symbol and currency substitute across a vast array of cultures, not a 12 year bull run propped up by counterfeit dollars and increasingly unrealistic claims that it will replace currency. There is literally no reason to believe that Bitcoin will ever 'replace gold in terms of market capitalization'

iexplainbtc 6y ago
> Gold does not take the electricity resources of a large country to render it secure and make transactions possible. Except it does [0]. > Gold is pretty to look at and can be made into jewellery, not intrinsically worthless. The first argument is laughable, the second is simply incorrect. Oil is intrinsically worthless. It's worth something only if you can turn it into fuel, plastic or some other product for which there is demand. Same goes for gold. And although it's true that you can turn a piece of gold into a piece of jewelry that piece of jewelry will decrease in value over time unless it gains intangible value because of its history. Try buying a gold necklace and selling it the next day at the same value. Nothing has "intrinsic" value. All value is relative. [0] https://medium.com/@hillpot/bitcoin-vs-gold-which-hurts-the-environment-more-75193863dfb6#:~:text=(1)%20Gold%20Mining%20Requires%20More%20Energy%20Dollar%2Dfor%2DDollar&text=The%20bitcoin%20network's%20global%20power,132%20terawatt%2Dhours%20per%20year https://medium.com/@hillpot/bitcoin-vs-gold-which-hurts-the-....
- maclured 6y ago
  > Oil is ... worth something only if you can turn it into fuel, plastic or some other product for which there is demand. Same goes for gold. You clearly don't understand what "intrinsic value" means if you believe this. The very fact it can be fabricated into something of value gives it some intrinsic value.
  - iexplainbtc 6y ago
    > The very fact it can be fabricated into something of value gives it some intrinsic value. That's a plain contradiction. Oil is valuable because there is demand for products manufactured with it. In a world where there's no demand for gasoline, plastic or any other derivative of oil the "intrinsic value" of oil is zero, which proves there is no such thing as intrinsic value that isn't relative to a market. Just to be clear we're discussing commodities and not company stocks, for which there is a very specific definition of "intrinsic value", according to fundamental analysis at least. I'm pretty sure you're the one who's confused, but ok.