But the industrial value of gold only accounts for a fraction of its price. The recent gold bubble/run-up shows that pretty clearly (the price changed much quic

But the industrial value of gold only accounts for a fraction of its price. The recent gold bubble/run-up shows that pretty clearly (the price changed much quicker and independent of its potential industrial uses). So the fact that gold has traditional and industrial uses doesn't really help to justify its "value" or its current price (especially when price is far above industrial demand). Its true that bitcoin doesn't have an underlying value as an industrial metal (obviously). But it does have an underlying value, primarily that it is distributed/un-seizable e-cash. This differentiates it from previous e-currency systems maintained by a central authority: paypal.com, libertyreserve.com, e-gold.com, notice these are all tied to an authoritative domain name, whereas bitcoin is not. The intrinsic property of being decentralized/p2p, enables the notable use-value of purchasing controlled substances from the tor hidden node Silk Road. There is no other way to purchase items from that market. This sort of use-value is comparable to the use-value we could assign to something like Facebook: that there is no other way to view the original content which others have posted there. Or to USD since there is no other way to pay taxes. I think it'd help your argument if you compared bitcoin to other virtual economies/currencies (facebook or facebook credits, paypal, eBay etc). Its obvious that bitcoin is not like gold and won't be valued for the exact same reasons. But see if you can come up with unique reasons why facebook and paypal (note that shares in neither company pay dividends) should have value whereas bitcoin should not.