The most powerful (and enjoyable!) brands in the world are valued in billions because people believe in them. LEGO, Disney, Google, Apple, or Amazon are so powerful because we believe in their ideas, vision, or lifestyle they showcase. We attach ourselves to them because they resemble something beyond the product or service they sell, they resemble something that we value. No more, no less.
The exact same holds for the currencies. USD, GBP, or EUR has value and are thus so powerful because we collectively believe in them as a legal tender. Let me give you an example for this. Currencies have value because we collectively believe in them. Imagine a room full of people. If all of the people would suddenly close their eyes and say Let's imagine this room is a spaceship, and it will fly us to Mars, nothing will happen. Since the room is neither a spaceship, nor it will ever fly.
But if all of the people in the room would suddenly close their eyes and say Let this thing have value, and they all value it - they have abruptly got a price for it. Such a collective agreement will thus allow them to exchange things of economic value among themselves, and more importantly - the external world can interact with them as well.
This, in fact, is very much interrelated with how nations were born. If you have enough people with the same identity and genesis, you have got a nation. Likewise, if you have enough people with the same beliefs and values, you have got a currency.
More of this here...
This is a very good article talking about how do we derive value for something. Indeed, it is us who are making something valuable and if more and more people would be subscribing that a certain thing or idea can be valuable then it would really be. The market is a platform where we show our approval for a certain thing and that is where the value can be computed depending on the current value and can also be influenced by its potential for more growth. This is quite true with cryptocurrency (and the same thing with fiat money).
Garbage.
Google and many other large companies survive because of anti-competitive practices, use regulation in countries to shutdown any competition through courts/legal teams, and continually get funded through increased central bank liquidity around the globe and make your garbage (pick any currency) fiat worth less every year - whether its US Dollar, Indian Ruppee, Chinese Yuan, whatever. As decades go on, infinite supply. Bitcoin is very finite and competed for many years with hundreds/thousands of cryptocurrencies and is always the king.
Though it is still very early adoption (most people everywhere don't know what it is)...
Bitcoin has freed, continuing to free, and tomorrow will still free many people globally from the centrally controlled debt-based fiat system that confiscates your wealth with inflation and tax. Bitcoin is a TRUE savings vehicle. Buying Real Estate, Hospital healthcare, Global traveling, College Education gets cheaper as you hold Bitcoin.
And it has become clear that...
Bitcoin CANNOT be controlled.
Bitcoin cannot be made legal. Governments may still attempt to do so. They can never have such domination on Bitcoin.
Bitcoin cannot be made illegal. Governments may still attempt to do so.
Central banks already control and manipulate Stocks, Real Estate, Gold, Interest Rates. Central banks will never have such domination on Bitcoin.
Bitcoin reached escape velocity 4-years ago in 2013 which means it cannot be stopped - cannot make it illegal or legal - governments/banks do not matter.
On the opposite end of the spectrum the global fiat (US Dollars, Indian Rupees, Chinese Yuan, etc) bubble system broke a couple of decades ago.
Fiat around the world is forced to inflate issuance as its heavily infested, burdened and broken with:
-regulatory burden on fiat banks & system (incredibly costly)
-unemployment & other welfare costs
-inflating fiat to keep stock market rising and to keep house-prices from collapsing
-financing conflicts, bombs, and "aid"
-insurance fraud
-false claims and insurance loss-events
-stabilize regions after natural disasters
-keeping monopolies with internet access centralized and search engine crawlers centralized
-money laundering
-chargebacks
-frivolous legal costs (lawsuits bogging the system down)
-state-sponsored corruption and unofficial corruption (governments and gangs, banks and conartists)
-retirement obligations (debasement in value to keep up with payments from government or other retirement-obligations)
-fake credit (goods being transacted with credit-loss, replaced by inflation of monetary base rather than bringing perpetrators & source to justice)
-using enforcement labor to freeze accounts and assets and take away your money
-costs of auditors and budgetors and accountants to governments and businesses
Bitcoin, systemically, is free from these burdens.
Bitcoin is GLOBALLY held and sought after by people in almost every country - see global trade data by country or see this list:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/which-country-are-you-from-here-list-thirty-popular-bitcoin-countries-for-trade-1853019
CAN SOMEONE PLEASE STOP BLOWING BUBBLES OF EXTRA FIAT MONEY AROUND THE WORLD? (PLEASE NO MORE USD, EUROS, JAPANESE YENS, INDIAN RUPEES, CHINESE YUAN, MEXICAN PESOS - PLEASE STOP INFLATING AND MAKING BITCOIN SO VALUABLE)...stop this pumping
https://macromon.wordpress.com/2017/04/26/the-chart-that-floats-overvaluation/