For. e.g. fiat money is created when a bank grants a loan i.e. SOMETHING, which is why paying someone with fiat money is actually the transfer of rights derived from bank loans. That is why fiat money fits the definition of payment — SOMETHING (rights recorded in the banking system) is transferred from one person to another.
you say FIAT is real because its something.. you say its something because a bank grants a loan to exist.
then by saying such, your also saying bitcoin is real because its something. the blockchain and people validating it say its something because they grant the block reward to exist
EG
a orphaned block/rejected block is not something. the community reject such blocks. and so orphaned blocks are not something.
the same as rejected loan agreements is not something
you yourself then countered yourself by saying fiat is not something by initially saying
If we start from a simple and undeniable fact that SOMETHING cannot appear or despair by changing entries in a database,
then it is obvious that so called Block Reward, which is just an algorithmic change of entry in a database(blockchain) — from 0 to 50 initially, is actually the creation of NOTHING or nothingness.
bank loans are exactly the same. changing entries in a database. thas all a bank loan is....
granting a bank loan is based on meeting a rule threshold for acceptance
so if you think bank fiatloans are something. then bitcoin rewards are something too. as those that grant/accept a block, agree it is acceptable and meets the accepted threshold to allowed to be created
But people did something strange — they gave a fancy name to this nothingness — Bitcoin. So, a mere change of entry in a database is given a name, which is in itself a bizarre thing to do. But anyhow, here is where the language manipulation kicks in. Changing entries is obviously just a database management and it belongs to the field of informatics. But what people did is they took the definition of "payment" - which belongs to the field of economy, and they copy/pasted that definition next to the phrase — "change of entry in a database". This created the illusion that when you change entry in a database(blockchain) you are actually transferring SOMETHING to another person, i.e. that you are paying. But payment is transfer of SOMETHING (rights, services or goods) from one person to another.
the payment is not simply changing a entry. its having the entry which can only be changed by a certain entity giving permission for another entity to have it. this is about ownership, permission, and change of controller/ownership/permission
..
now you understand that FIAT and bitcoin in respect of data is the same. what you have to realise is the VALUE of that data is decided by those that have control/permission to change the data from one entity to another.
take for instance, bitcoin. people know the bottomline value of bitcoin (the lowest value they would dare swap the control/permission of the entry) is based on the creation/acquisition cost of that. so if it costs $43k of electric and ASIC hardware to create a block with a reward entry of 12.5. then those with permission to change who gets to has control/permission of the 12.5 entry wont swap such permission below cost.
the receiver wont accept the 12.5 entry for $43k if they did not think it was worth that much effort/cost
this is where the markets develop. where people start to display their thinking of what the value should be for the entries they want to send and receive.
and this is where bitcoin has more benefits than FIAT.
because there is an underlying cost for its creation/acquisition (asic mining)
yes there is speculation. which is where ABOVE the underlying value(bottomline cost) that people speculate that future or utility premium to add on to the value. but the underlying cost/value still has relevance.
people get to a point where they would see that bitcoin wont just disappear instantly. thus there is no point selling right down to zero as they can see it will still function the next day. so people instead set a bottom limit to how low they will refuse to sell below. which is mainly their acquisition/creation cost(buying/mining cost)
FIAT has a more flimsier less set in stone underlying value. U.S government for instance try to form a underlying value of things such as $7.50 is the minimum value for an hour of sweat labour (minimum wage laws)