Coming into this thread i thought 'yes its also demand which means value, supply
is only half of the picture' but franky1's post has opened my eyes, there are other
factors which combine to create value
I had not considered UTILITY to be as big a factor than it truly is. Bitcoin and a few
other coins have proven to date that they offer a real world useage or solution
and therefore have value because of the combination of factors above.
the highschool lessons of just supply vs demand is a foolish notion. anyone just spouting the words "supply vs demand" has not thought about it in detail
prices are not set by supply and demand.
lets take 4000 bags supply of dogs mess bags... and zero demand.2 known stats. but i can still market and publish a bag for any price i want. so if i said $2. then boom.. thats the price. supply and demand does not set a price. price can set the demand
demand could rise and i actually make sales.. but demand does not mean my bags increase in price.i could continue to sell my dogs mess at $2 to 4000 people.
as for supply the 4000 people could re-sell it at $1 per half bag weight. thus forever as it gets divided up could continue to sell it at $2 pr whole bag, even when the units of supply multiply and demand/supply grows.
its peoples desire, and peoples decision to sell for less or more. and thats based on what they feel they could do with the bag. and how they feel if it can influence or add value to peoples lives by what it can do. for them
yes if there is a demand. then that can influence the price to go up. but demand can also make the price go down
imagine a phone manufacturer is going to make 1million phones. before even knowing how much demand there will be. they have calculated it cost $33 per phone and set a retail price of $100
now imagine one month they sell one 12th of phones because the demand is on 12th of a million people want it that month.
the retailer could say. wow there is demand. i could push up the price and make more money.
the retailer could also say. i could lower the price because i still have eleven 12ths of stock that was bought for $33million and i have made $8.3m and i need to get rid of this stock before the next gen phone is available. meaning i only need to make $25m on 833k phones to break even. so ill market and price the phones at $30 just to get rid of stock.
and now the price can effect demand by seeing more people buy it in month 2 due to discount. thus price creates demand rather than demand creating the price.
suply and demand can influence the SPECULATION/hype price above value. but there is always an undrlying value of something if people find it useful.
EG bitcoins value of december 2017 was about $4k-$6k but peoples emotion and speculation made a bubble that hit near $20k