4 ms·

> The coin has no intrinsic value This is pretty debatable. Bitcoin does have some intrinsic value as a medium of exchange and store of value.

blowski 4y ago
What can you do with the bits that make up your Bitcoin, other than trade them for something else?
- vntok 4y ago
  You can prove you actually own how much you want to prove you actually own, without leaking any other information on your identity or current wealth. You can sign documents. You can mount complex escrow processes with it. You can send it worldwide to anybody without even knowing where they live (phone numbers fail), or what their bank is (IBANs fail) or what their email is (gift cards fail) or whether they are allowed by someone else to receive money (paypal fails). You can pool it with friends and set up conditions for safe withdrawal reliant on multiple people agreeing at the same time. And you can receive money from anyone, anywhere around the world, without anyone else's permission.
  - blowski 4y ago
    Só if you send it to someone, what can they do with it?
  - jboy55 4y ago
    Yes, but how many coins fulfill those basic requirements? Why is btc special? Why would any of these coins be worth anything besides some fee to convert-to from fiat and convert-from to fiat?
- none_to_remain 4y ago
  You can pay Bitcoin (and only Bitcoin) to embed messages, typically transaction messages, in the global Bitcoin blockchain. I was hoping years back that all of this would have taken off for payments rather than silliness. I was wondering if we'd see a (low) Bitcoin value determined by the need to pay BTC transaction fees and those fees being effectively locked up until the next block comes
clavalle 4y ago
With all of the options these days, I'd wonder about the characterization of 'intrensic'.
chadash 4y ago
I would say that bitcoin has extrinsic value. The value it has is because people agree it has value. Imagine I started a blockchain using the exact same code as bitcoin and called it Bitcoin9890812894. It would have the same functionality as bitcoin but a value of $0 since virtually no one else would agree that it has any value. On the opposite end, a can of Cambell's soup has intrinsic value, because it's worth something to someone regardless of what anyone else thinks. The can of soup that Andy Warhol as the basic for his famous paintings has a mixture of both types of value (surely someone will pay significantly more for that can over any other identical can).
- tshaddox 4y ago
  > The value it has is because people agree it has value. Imagine I started a blockchain using the exact same code as bitcoin and called it Bitcoin9890812894. It would have the same functionality as bitcoin but a value of $0 since virtually no one else would agree that it has any value. That doesn’t seem like a contradiction at all, right? If your fork somehow became well known and replaced the original, then yeah, your fork would have some intrinsic value as a medium of exchange and a store of value.
  - jboy55 4y ago
    > If your fork somehow became well known and replaced the original, then yeah, your fork would have some intrinsic value as a medium of exchange and a store of value. Intrinsic value is a value outside of perceived value. A can of soup is calories, which we need to survive, as long as it is edible, it will always be worth something to a human. Farm land has intrinsic value because it can produce food. Diesel has intrinsic value because farmers need this to produce food. Bitcoin9890812895, my fork of Bitcoin9890812894 has no intrinsic value to anyone.
    - tshaddox 4y ago
      > Intrinsic value is a value outside of perceived value. Yes, and we're not talking about perceived value. We're talking about intrinsic value from a peer-to-peer network that's used by many people.
pirate787 4y ago
I'll debate that- the intrinsic value from exchange is less than the cost to pay the miners to run the network, therefore a negative net present value -- bitcoin is not a store of value, but fundamentally destroys value and relies on greater fools to buy for any price increase.
bmacho 4y ago
About the amount of work to make a toy banking system. I never tried, but there are some download and next next finish coin generators, right? So the bitcoin system is worth about a buck or so. (.. if I want to be very generous, we can add the value of the bitcoin brand, and that el salvador accepts it, some apps already can handle it, but really that's it. It's still negligible.)

blowski 4y ago

What can you do with the bits that make up your Bitcoin, other than trade them for something else?

vntok 4y ago
You can prove you actually own how much you want to prove you actually own, without leaking any other information on your identity or current wealth. You can sign documents. You can mount complex escrow processes with it. You can send it worldwide to anybody without even knowing where they live (phone numbers fail), or what their bank is (IBANs fail) or what their email is (gift cards fail) or whether they are allowed by someone else to receive money (paypal fails). You can pool it with friends and set up conditions for safe withdrawal reliant on multiple people agreeing at the same time. And you can receive money from anyone, anywhere around the world, without anyone else's permission.
- blowski 4y ago
  Só if you send it to someone, what can they do with it?
- jboy55 4y ago
  Yes, but how many coins fulfill those basic requirements? Why is btc special? Why would any of these coins be worth anything besides some fee to convert-to from fiat and convert-from to fiat?
none_to_remain 4y ago
You can pay Bitcoin (and only Bitcoin) to embed messages, typically transaction messages, in the global Bitcoin blockchain. I was hoping years back that all of this would have taken off for payments rather than silliness. I was wondering if we'd see a (low) Bitcoin value determined by the need to pay BTC transaction fees and those fees being effectively locked up until the next block comes

clavalle 4y ago

With all of the options these days, I'd wonder about the characterization of 'intrensic'.

chadash 4y ago

I would say that bitcoin has extrinsic value. The value it has is because people agree it has value. Imagine I started a blockchain using the exact same code as bitcoin and called it Bitcoin9890812894. It would have the same functionality as bitcoin but a value of $0 since virtually no one else would agree that it has any value. On the opposite end, a can of Cambell's soup has intrinsic value, because it's worth something to someone regardless of what anyone else thinks. The can of soup that Andy Warhol as the basic for his famous paintings has a mixture of both types of value (surely someone will pay significantly more for that can over any other identical can).

tshaddox 4y ago
> The value it has is because people agree it has value. Imagine I started a blockchain using the exact same code as bitcoin and called it Bitcoin9890812894. It would have the same functionality as bitcoin but a value of $0 since virtually no one else would agree that it has any value. That doesn’t seem like a contradiction at all, right? If your fork somehow became well known and replaced the original, then yeah, your fork would have some intrinsic value as a medium of exchange and a store of value.
- jboy55 4y ago
  > If your fork somehow became well known and replaced the original, then yeah, your fork would have some intrinsic value as a medium of exchange and a store of value. Intrinsic value is a value outside of perceived value. A can of soup is calories, which we need to survive, as long as it is edible, it will always be worth something to a human. Farm land has intrinsic value because it can produce food. Diesel has intrinsic value because farmers need this to produce food. Bitcoin9890812895, my fork of Bitcoin9890812894 has no intrinsic value to anyone.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    > Intrinsic value is a value outside of perceived value. Yes, and we're not talking about perceived value. We're talking about intrinsic value from a peer-to-peer network that's used by many people.

pirate787 4y ago

I'll debate that- the intrinsic value from exchange is less than the cost to pay the miners to run the network, therefore a negative net present value -- bitcoin is not a store of value, but fundamentally destroys value and relies on greater fools to buy for any price increase.

bmacho 4y ago

About the amount of work to make a toy banking system. I never tried, but there are some download and next next finish coin generators, right? So the bitcoin system is worth about a buck or so. (.. if I want to be very generous, we can add the value of the bitcoin brand, and that el salvador accepts it, some apps already can handle it, but really that's it. It's still negligible.)