Whether we talk about property, assets, possessions... we always have in mind things with specific properties that can be owned or controlled in some way. These things can be divided into two major categories: tangible and intangible. The former include such items as land, houses, cars, and jewelry. The later include such rights as stock, bonds, gold certificates, fiat money, patents, and copyrights. Take for example fiat money. This intangible thing is debt based instrument that entitles its holder to goods, services or foreclosed property of borrowers. By having this type of money, what people actually have is proof that they credited borrowers with goods and services, which is why borrowers must return goods and services back to these people - this happens when borrowers need money for their loan payments. The next instance of legal entitlement granted to holders of fiat money comes from the fact this money is legally tied to bank’s assets, which can be seen in a bank’s balance sheet where deposits are recorded as a claim on the bank. Specifically, when a bank grants a loan, the loan contract is shown both, as an increase in bank’s assets - because the bank now has an additional claim on borrowers, and as a positive entry on the liability side - because fiat money holders now have an additional claim on the bank. So, in the event that the borrowers default, and the bank takes possession of the property used as collateral, fiat money holders have legal claim on that property. In practice, that means that the bank will not sell foreclosed property to crypto holders, but it will sell it to fiat money holders since this is the money the bank created when it issued the loan.
So, intangible thing in the form of fiat money has its specific properties and it is not just a piece of paper or a numerical value based on faith, as many people falsely believe. Numerical values on banknotes or in bank computers are just mathematical objects that measure the size of this intangible thing.
In other words, when we talk about intangible things we are talking about something beyond paper or digital entity, as this entity just represents or measures the thing. In the case of fiat money we saw that this thing is a legal entitlement derived from debt. In the case of stocks, this thing is ownership in a corporation or a claim on part of the corporation’s assets and earnings. In the case of bonds, this thing is the entitlement to interest payments and the return of principal at maturity.
Now, since bitcoin exists as a digital entity, like for e.g. fiat money does, and since this entity is given a name, people bought the illusion that bitcoin also exists as an intangible thing which is why they call it an asset. But unfortunately, bitcoin is not an asset since nothing exists beyond digital entity stored in an online virtual wallet. There is no legal entitlement which is granted to bitcoin holders like in the case of fiat money, stocks or bonds. All there is, is an empty numerical value. Meaning, bitcoin is a number that represents nothing. Or simply put, bitcoin does not exist since number is just an abstract mathematical object that can only be used to measure the size of some asset but it cannot be considered asset itself. Therefore, bitcoin is an abstract, empty object that records the fact that someone got or gave some property, assets or possessions for free.
Also, bitcoin does not have a price. Only things that exist beyond numbers or records can have a price. Numbers and records are just abstract object that represent things, and they cannot have price in principle. If numbers represent for e.g. some important password, than we can put a price tag on it. But, the number 0.0005 stored in an online virtual wallet is not a password. So, what people see in so called "bitcoin market" is not actually a price.
Sooner or later people will realize that by ‘purchasing’ empty objects in the form of bitcoin they are abandoning their ownership rights and literally throwing away their valuable things. Ultimately, the whole scheme will destroy itself.