We assume you are asking these question from Trestor. We will try our level best to reply.
Yes sir, and you did not need to assume since you are the previous poster in this thread above.
What gives bitcoin value? How is the price of 1 bitcoin determined? Why?
This valuation is demonstrated when individuals freely exchange Bitcoins over various global exchanges.
Cool that you recognize that the value of bitcoin is what individuals wish to trade it for.
2. Since we already have consensus in the form of blockchain, what is the use of "proof-of-work" in bitcoin?
Not sure if we understand the above question, could you please elaborate?
Let's say few of us friends decide to create a playmoney system, where everyone gets equal amount of some starting money to pay others with. Whenever someone owes someone else money, they simply mail this information to everyone, saying that "I pay so&so this much money". This mail-chain is a ledger, that everyone of our friends have and thus everyone knows who paid whom what; basically a consensus. Transactions declared that conflict with previous transactions are not accepted. No one can double spend etc because there is a consensus reached by mail-chain.
This is system is the first part of bitcoin system, like the hashcash system that existed before bitcoin. A simplified version of this system is very commonly used in daily life among friends living together in hostels, where they don't actually pay money but just keep an oral record of who owes whom what and then pay up when money arrives.
But there are some problems in this system, because it won't work for large groups even if everyone has good memory(lets say they write it down in their diaries), and also other issues because of which hashcash like systems don't work.
Thus a consensus is not enough; proof-of-work is also required. Why? What are these issues? And how does proof-of-work solve these issues?
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The reason why I asked these two questions is that I just wanted you to understand with respect to trests is that :
- Value of a trest is not decided by trading individuals
- T-net eliminates proof-of-work mining by a consensus system of validators. But simply a consensus is not enough, your understanding of which would be demonstrated by your answer to the above.