Topic: what gives Bitcoin it value? (Read 519 times)

At the end of the day, the value of cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies comes from “trust.”

The total supply of 21 million bitcoins will be fully mined in 2140 and we cannot generate another bitcoin. But so far some bitcoins have been lost because some users have lost their private keys, and those bitcoins actually never came back. So the total supply of bitcoin has decreased significantly.
Bitcoin is not like gold. The amount of gold is estimated to be 60 trillion tons in the earth's crust and we have only extracted more than 190 thousand tons of gold. If bitcoin really becomes legal worldwide, I really can't imagine how high its value will be.

I agree that the limitation of BTC gives it value because it obviously makes it a totally deflationary economy, in addition to the fact that if we go to the price it is currently given merely by market speculation, institutional investments have arrived in an impressive way, the whales are also a guarantee of giving value to BTC, however, there may be rivalry between bear whales and bull whales, which, both need the market, however the best of all is that the BTC market obeys the law of Supply and Demand, I think qeu all this is of greater guarantee and support than the same FIAT money.

Right, people value fiat currency only because they trust the government that issued it. If it weren't the case, fiat currency would be no better than pieces of painted paper that have no real purchasing power. Bitcoin is totally different, it doesn't require trust in issuers, every characteristic bitcoin possesses can be independently observed and verified without people having to coerce others to believe in it. Although bitcoin is of digital nature, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and it doesn't mean it is not real. It is very real like any other software that is installed on your PC or any digital photo that you take while on a trip. Can you say that pictures on your phone aren't real and that they only become real once printed on paper? I doubt it. You value the photos on your phone for many reasons, but other people could have a different view: they won't value pictures of your family, for instance. Bitcoin is money that can be exchanged for real goods and services, many people value bitcoin for that because they know: as bitcoin matures, more and more people will recognize it as a currency, more and more people will understand why the characteristics of bitcoin make it a better form of money, all of that will likely result in even more purchasing power and more value.

The strength of the community is indeed very important to support bitcoin to exist and continue to be used. Bitcoin is a valuable digital asset today. In addition to public trust in bitcoin, bitcoin also has a limited supply, so the more often it is mined, the less bitcoin supply will be. The total supply of 21m cannot be increased or decreased, so once bitcoins are fully mined, bitcoins will be scarcer and prices will be higher. the future of bitcoin is still long and this is still the beginning for bitcoin and the world of cryptocurrencies.

You are right indecencies that Bitcoin is decentralized, assuming Bitcoin is centralized the regulation would have been shambled because of physical manipulation would have become obvious for it regulations and speculation, Bitcoin is a digital currency like Gold but it's value is differ from other digital currencies, and from my perspective another thing that made Bitcoin unique or different is the length of it's market structural rotations.

all of us. so simple

produce actually does have a cost and underlying value below the market price.... but you have to separate the VALUE vs the price
lets call VALUE=whole sale COST. and lets call PRICE=COST+profit (profit= speculative volatility above value)
now take 2 lines
                   /\
PRICE__/\/   \/\
                              \/\/\__
                       _______
value_____------

value is below price. but you never see the value on a market price ticket. .. its hidden..
value moves up slowly and incrementally below the volatile and speculative price.

the PRICE is above the value. but the PRICE can move up and down depending on many factors. but if a business is actually money savvi will never sell at a loss.. because thats just bad business

but thats if you can understand the difference between the hidden underlying value vs the speculative price

EG say a dairy farm can milk a cow for a gallon of milk for $0.72.
its not going to sell that milk for less then $0.72
so it sells milk in bulk at say $1.15cents to a pasteurising factory(60% profit)

pasteurising factory gets a gallon of milk for $1.15cent. plus 6cent delivery to its factory
it then has 20cent cost to heat it and then bottle it ($1.41cents)
its not going to sell that milk for less then $1.41cents
so it sells milk in bulk at say $2.25cents to a supermarket(60% profit)

so the supermarket sells milk at say $3.60cents to a customer(60% profit)

you may not realise that the supermarket had a value/cost and the factory and the farm had a value/cost hidden away .. but they do.. all businesses know this and understand this. .. i know you only see the retail price of milk and think thats VALUE..  but no thats market PRICE

the value of milk to a farmer is bottomline $0.72cent-$1.15
the value of milk to a factory is bottomline $1.41cent-$2.25
the value of milk to a market is bottomline $2.25cent-$3.60

yes someone living near a farm can avoid the super MARKET PRICE and acquire milk UN-pasteurised from the farmer for $1.15
but its unpasteurised so its features and benefits may not be worth the discount(bacteria milk, yuck). so it might be able to slip $2.25 to a factory employee and thus get pasteurised milk cheaper than supermarket PRICES

so in that scenario that lucky person values milk at $2.25 because thats the cheapest he can get what he wants.
(much like some whales can get BTC at whole sale O-T-C prices(below market PRICE rate))

the base line value where no one on the planet can get milk anywhere on the planet cheaper than $0.72 is where milks very bottomline value of $0.72

but no one will want to go start a farm to get milk for $0.72 as there is alot of work and effort for bacteria milk
people would prefer to set up a factory for minimum $1.41 cost. or if still more work, buy for convenience cost of $2.25-$3.60 depending on access, meaning majority of the community value milk between $1.41-$3.60
where by the price they pay is somewhere in that range dependant on access, convenience

there are places on the planet where it costs a farmer over $3.60 a gallon.. but that farmer doesnt farm. he just buys milk cheaper.
..
there is alot more happening in regards to "produce value" then just the supermarket PRICE you see
do you really think that the accountants/ financial department of a supermarket just has a hat full of random numbers from $0 to $3.60 and just picks a number at random.. truth is they know the minimum number.. and it sure as hell isnt $0


with bitcoin the cheapest and most expensive mining cost is ~$33k-$78k at todays hashrate
the price sits somewhere inbetween depending on many factors
EG because it costs $78k to mine in places like bermuda, japan, germany (high electric cost) they are not mining right now. they prefer to buy
EG because it costs $44k to mine at home(residential electric cost) in america they are not mining right now. they prefer to buy
EG mining in kazahkstan is $33k so they are happy to be a mining farm and sell for profit.

bitcoins bottomline value is $33k not $0
milks bottomline value is ~$1.41 not $0

Bitcoin is valuable, because it helps you transact in another way. The protocol is designed to transfer value between two participants as long as they both evaluate it. If both consider it money, it can gain monetary value.

This is false. The supply does not affect the people's demand. Also, the supply is inflated steadily. It doesn't change accordingly to the demand and in fact, it's the only asset that has this feature.

It does not work like that. You cannot say that a thing has value just because you think it has a value but other people should agree with it first. BTC has a value not because we think it is valuable but it is really valuable because of its real world application. I do not need to explain if what are those use cases because you already list above.

Just because fiat inflates I do not think people are now going to trust their money with bitcoin because lets not forget that there are still risk with bitcoin. From its value that are not stable, it is also hard to catch the criminal if we got hacked or scammed. Pensions and savings are funds that needs to be secure for your future and not to gamble by investing into highly volatile thing like probably not in all 100% but in less percentage.

The technology behind Bitcoin gives its value. Bitcoin is a proof of work, a mineable coin  but it is unique and very different than many shit proof of work coins. If you spend inputs (power, mining rigs, ventilation, other things for mining farm infrastructures) into shit mineable coins, you might lose all money because technology behind is not great. They just copy and paste coins so that they can not compare to Bitcoin. The community behind Bitcoin is big and developers are top notch, not bottom level so that they develop Bitcoin better.

Shit coins can clone source code of Bitcoin but what's next after initial clone? Clone next times whenever Bitcoin has upgrades? No value from such clones.

bitcoin has values(utility/philosophical reasons)
bitcoin has value(economic/acquisition cost reasons)

if you imagine that everyone on the planet. no matter their method of acquisition (trade, barter, exchange, mining) cannot get bitcoin any cheaper than ~$37k, this $37k is the bottomline VALUE

the volatile PRICE above this bottom line is the whimsy/speculative values(reasons for desire/utility/philosophical) where people decide how much its worth to them personally/individually. which can change region to region

the price is not "value"(bottomline economic value) its the speculation due to 'values'

its not a simple highschool economics of 'demand and supply'
because

even if there is say $400,000 fiat and 10btc deposited into an exchange. (fiat=demand, btc= supply)
the market does not instantaneous become $40k/btc.
instead that $400k could be 1000 people with $400 each and 5people with 2btc each
where by the 2 people selling 5btc each. may have the same supply. but may have lots of different idea's of 'values' they allot to their supply
EG they both know its worth more then $37k/btc value to them. but one might want to sell only 0.01 allotments at $400 to avoid a crash by only catering to each buyer 1 by 1. because he has mane reasons for different values(reasons)
where as the other seller just wants to get rid of his coin in one drop... where he see less values and just wants to get out taking atleast, but hopefully more than the value(economic min)
conclusion: same supply. same demand.. but causes different market actions
OR
EG they both know its worth more then $37k value. but one might want to sell 0.01 at $400, 0.00999 at $400, 0.00998 at $400 to cater to each buyer 1 by 1 thus causing a price rise slowly by $4/btc per order
where as the other seller just wants to just put coins on an order line at $42k and wait it out
conclusion: same supply. same demand.. but causes different market actions

the 'supply' is the same. the 'demand' is the same. (same 10coin same $400k fiat deposits) but the market conditions are different

Op is write from the aspect that he is going. He said that it is demand and supply that give bitcoin value. You should instead say that bitcoin was built on scarcity model. Because, everything that has value we see today is because there is demand for it. Anything that doesn't have demand will not dominate.
Bitcoin has value because people believe in the security of bitcoin,  that is PoS protocol.
Also because of the liberty to use your money pseudonymously is another big reason. Some people don't like third party in their private life. Even the miners incentive is one of the value drivers of bitcoin. So bitcoin is totally value driven.

Trust Minimization and Censorship resistance with decentralize gives it value.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psZwNF6OcXQ

Bitcoin is said to be a great long-term investment tool because in recent years bitcoin has experienced a rapid increase and is able to make the world go into an uproar with the achievement of bitcoin prices that continue to rise. The more bitcoins are mined the less the number of bitcoins that can be mined is that there are only 21 million Bitcoins available. according to predictions all will be successfully mined until the year 2140 and it is still a very long time.
at that time bitcoin will experience scarcity and will certainly be a rare digital asset.

All things not just bitcoin, their value comes from demand. The higher the demand, the higher the bitcoin value will be. Besides the scarcity of supply, the demand for owning bitcoin is increasing because of the utility and breakthrough technology that bitcoin brings to today's society. Convenient, easy to store and can pay, transfer money anywhere without going through any other 3rd party.

I think you are wrong. The true value of Bitcoin does not come from demand. The price of Bitcoin may come from demand. But ultimately Bitcoin's value goes deeper than demand.

You may ask, in the first place, why the rising demand? Or perhaps, why is there a demand to begin with? The answer to these questions gives you the value of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer digital currency. But that's not all. It is also limited in supply. It is also trustless. And more.

its not based on some popularity social drama gossip decision..  nor based on some campfire community agreement of price.

there is a baseline value due to real cost of acquiring it (mining). then above that base value is the speculative hype social decision stuff based on many sentiment, regional influences and different factors

some of the other posters try to also suggest paper fiat has no bases. well yes fiat paper is not worth the value its printed on. but the value is derived from laws such as minimum wage and tax.
EG if min wage is $10. then a $10 bank note is worth an hours labour of the poorest person working

There are too many factors for that and not only by popularity Bitcoin price will increase.
No one forgets the most valuable stuff in the crypto world, others forget their asset but they store their crypto-asset for storing value and hoping that someday it will become the most expensive assets make a profit on it.

The main factor is the limited supply of Bitcoin, which means it will make the price move by the demand and supply.  We know that every year Bitcoin has raised awareness and now becomes globally known and some are accepted Bitcoin as a legal tender.  So people or a community like us was the reason that Bitcoin has value.

As long demand is there then you could really expect something like this on which value could really soar up that high and this is why most people do really see the potential on holding it for long term.

If we do try to compare the situation 10 years ago then we could really conclude out that there's so much potential for this coin.It had started on having no value or near to none but

the community do make out that recognition until we do reach out these all time highs.

I believe its because of alot people that still keep believing and keep supporting bitcoin wherein reason there's a demand and supply in the market and bitcoin price keeps improving and getting matured every year. . Because to be honest i do believe that without strong support in the market for sure bitcoin isn't valuable right now and it's useless in the crypto space..

To make the story short it's because of us  reason why bitcoin has value.

Appreciation and the trust behind the bitcoin community. Its the same question: what gives Vincent van Gogh's The Red Vineyard value? - people's appreciation.

I'll turn the question around: what gives unbacked paper money its worth? The answer is simple: poeple all believe that the paper in front of them is worth $100, even if the material is the same as the $50 bill, which is only half the value. Bitcoin's value is basically similar, except that this value is still defined by the invested energy it took to mine that bitcoin.

That simple analogy alone will give you good insight that bitcoin's demand will increase over the years. And since the supply is fixed. We can say, we will see its price increasing in the coming years, though the up and down will still be there as part of its volatility aspect. With the supply and demand concept, we are seeing that possession of bitcoin has a very good chance in gaining its profit in the very near future.

What gives bitcoin value most in my eyes is the decentralized electronic nature of a cash system that was never possible before. The limited amount of twenty one million is also a large part of what gives it its value. There had never been anything like it before.

There are almost 8 billion people in the world. Probably more than half of those people know about bitcoin. There are only 21m bitcoins, more than half of which have already been mined. A lot of bitcoins are lost forever in the early days. Considering that there can never be more than 21m and that bitcoin's popularity grows every year one can conclude that bitcoin's value is in its deficit. I haven't even mentioned its usefulness yet.

The value of Bitcoins is basically based on the Demand and supply rule which does mean that the moment the demand exceeds the supply the value will sky rocket. It's not really a weird science but much like stocks it fluctuates in the value, being more volatile bitcoins at the end of the day gains it's power from being an essential asset, also the holders, the long term holders like Mr. Satoshi provides bitcoins, value since the holders are like 50% of the bitcoin investors, I think the value is dependent upon many factors, therefore it's the sum of all of these that makes it valuable. Whales also guarantee a certain amount of backup as well.

That's in general the demand that makes the value in Bitcoin increasingly provide high value, besides that the level of trust and the purpose of Bitcoin makes everyone interested in the uniqueness that bitcoin has. Scarcity is also included, because then Bitcoin continues to create increasing trust just as people believe in storing value in gold.

So from this, supply and demand continues to have a positive effect. In this case Bitcoin has shown us that there are alternatives to meas that can guarantee the resilience of value over time.

Bitcoin value created by the community and price depends on the demand. I don't want to mix price and value together. It's because Bitcoin fully backed the community, on the other hand, the price works based on new investors. We can see many cryptocurrencies have been created after Bitcoin, but it's all not appreciated than Bitcoin and the only reason for community acceptance. Also, new instinctual investors enter Bitcoin which has an impact on the price. It's not all about mining Bitcoin.

First and foremost, bitcoin has a value because our mind believes thats it is valuable just like fiat. Bitcoin is handy form of currency that accepted by people.It has the ability to transfer value to anyone, anywhere around the world. In short, it is use as medium of exchange.Bitcoin can also consider as a commodity because its supplies are limited and cannot easily produce just like gold.It can also consider as an asset, because it is good to use as a storage of wealth.Everything has a value as long as you can benefit from it.Bitcoin is more than like money and gold

underlying value comes from the bottom amount absolutely no one can ever aquire it for at the moment.
whether its from selling goods or services for coin.
whether its from buying coin on a market
whether its from mining it.

the bottom VALUE on the planet is about $37k. because no one on the planet can mine it for less. and the market PRICE is at ~$40k and those selling goods/services try to add on a few percent so they get it for a bit more.

other places on the planet have higher mining costs. so instead of mining. they buy it.  if the price is better then their local mining cost, thus supporting the market to be above the cheapest acquisition cost(mining in cheapest region)
then other regions have even higher costs so they are more then happy to keep buying even in high price times

if the PRICE. came down to the value line (bottom cheapest mining cost on planet) even those cheap miners would go on a buy frenzy.. after all why wait hours or days to mine 1btc when you can buy it at near same rate in seconds.

you cannot see this value line on any market chart. sorry its not the price. its an invisible line below the price. and its why people dont know or think there is a value because they dont see everyone showing a line on charts. but the line does exist. and it definitely is no where near $0

all the other stuff about trader sentiment of supply and demand. is what plays in the speculation ABOVE value. its the volatile wobble factor of the price triggered by human nature and emotion.

alot of people try to make the "mining supply limit" thing a price impactor of "supply and demand"

but here is the thing
total supply DOES NOT decrease.

in 2012 there were 10.5m coins
in 2016 there were 15.75m
in 2020 it was 18.375m
and we are sitting at 18.96m
and in 120years it just stops.. and stays at 21m.

the numbers in circulation keep going up. until they stop.

the mining cost (coin mined per block) does affect the underlying value. which then pumps up the bottomline market price. but it does not affect the day to day speculative emotion of price. becase the rate of mining 'supply' only changes once every 4 years. not daily

markets dont even touch all of this supply in circulation. markets only utilise like 10% of supply because not everyone is trading at the same time. the market PRICE "supply" is not affected by mined coins created or the general supply of 18.96m
markets play with a subset of coins normally about a variable of 1.5-4mill coins, but diluted over many different exchanges at any time
also when there is a low market allotment. sellers stop selling 0.1 coin for $4k and start selling 0.01coin for $401.

yep back in 2012 when there were only 10.5 coins total supply. people were making orders for 1-1000 coin
today at near 19m coins. people are making orders for 0.001-1coin. yet "supply" dynamics should be that people make orders for
1.9-1900coins. because of the silly rhetoric of "supply".

the reason why traders now only sell orders of 0.001-1. is not to do with supply of coin. but the fact that the buyers are investing a limited amount of fiat

in 2012 $600 could get you 100 coins. but them same investors only wanting to make buy orders of $600 are now getting only 0.015 coin.
because if seller were to try to off load 1BTC they will take away 66 keen buyers off the bidding table in 1 swoop and cause a price crash
so although there is more general supply than in 2012. the traders within the markets are not putting all that supply into exchanges to cause a crash.
so yea its not a simple "supply" thing. there are many factors involved and not the ones you have been taught at highschool

as for demand. well thats a variety of factors. some of which are that if it costs americans ~$43k and cost a japenese $75k to mine but the price is $40k. dang right they will want to buy and support the price above the bottom value

but here is the thing. the PRICE is not the VALUE.
the value window currently sits at a gap of $37k -$88k
where by EVERYONE would want to buy at $37k
where by NO ONE would want to sell below $37k
 and NO ONE would want to buy at $88k
 and EVERYONE would want to sell at $88k

all because no one can mine for less and no one can mine for more. so the market PRICE sits somewhere inbetween those numbers depending on speculations of emotion, sentiment and person reasons affecting their decisions

its the same with gold.
if gold cost $0.90-$2 to mine gold in your own back yard with a spoon and coffee filter as the cheapest way to mine. at most the market sentiment will allow is $2
because everyone else can probably mine for $2 or less aswell..

but it actually costs gold miners $900/ounce to mine. which is the baseline VALUE and which is why the price is between $900-$2k because its between the window of mining cost. where by no one would buy for $2.1k if everyone on the planet can mine for $2k so no one buys for such high price unless its a hype bubble thats about to crash.
and its why traders know they have no fear of ever seeing gold drop below $900. because if it even got close to $900, everyone would go on buying frenzy for cheap gold and support the price ABOVE value

All about supply & demand, the world financial system is on its knees. Bitcoin is a deflationary asset, the supply of new coins mined halves every 4 years. Fiat is inflationary as we all know & it’s only getting worse. Bitcoin is going to eat up peoples investment money. Pensions, savings, everything, people will migrate to bitcoin. Bitcoin is going to play a massive part in the future of finance.

Bitcoin have symbolic value of what people are willing to pay for it. I don't think it's reasonable to measure its 'intrinsic value' in any way, even though I guess it's possible to do that by taking into account the average cost of mining (electricity bills, maintenance, human workforce) per coin, but it's not giving anything helpful, and even produce doesn't have its value counted this way (goods usually cost significantly more than it's worth to make them and, in some cases where state regulation of prices is done, they can cost less). So the demand defines the price, but the demand is heavily affected by sentiments of people (FOMO or FUD).

Bitcoin has a value because of its ability to become global currency. Bitcoin can be use in some many ways ( store of value,medium of exchange and investment) Bitcoin also get value from trust. The more people believes and use bitcoin,the more it becomes valuable.

Prompting you are right as demand affects the price of Bitcoin, yet we can't deny the surge after the market turn to its first Bullish trend. People had valued  Bitcoin more than anything we found in the crypto world and not to wonder why it continue till this time and probably in the future. Granting how the demand is growing, the more possibility that the price of Bitcoin will even grow more...
5-10 years from now we see more changes, that really sure it happens. 

Demand and supply are the two major driving force behind the growth of every market, Bitcoin inclusive. A growth in demand against supply would lead to a growth in the price. As an example, consider 12 years ago, when the price of bitcoin was below a dollar, today, it is almost $40,000 and has reached a peak of almost $70,000. Same network (except for few improvement proposals updates), but a much larger market and demand.

However, a growth in demand and consequently price would need to be sustained by an actual utility otherwise it would eventually crash down, similar to the Tulip Mania of the dutch golden age.

My understanding of Bitcoin's value is the same as in any other system of exchange. It's the network effect. The more people who are using it, the more valuable it is. It has two things in it: it has good properties as an asset and it's decentralized, which is a huge advantage.
And one of the nice things about it is that it doesn't use a third party, so you don't have to trust anyone with your financial information, which is a very good trait in a system.

And that's really the key to an asset like this.

While your argument is a bit simplistic, you are correct, in that demand is what drives up the price of bitcoin or anything (at equal supply).

We could go into distinguishing between value and price but for simplicity's sake let's assume that they coincide.

However, the fact that more and more is being mined does not give more value to Bitcoin, you are wrong here. What gives it value is that the supply decreases with every halving, and that there is a total limit of Bitcoin that can be mined that cannot be exceeded (unless there is a very unlikely future consensus against changing the limit of 21M).

in my own understanding about what gives Bitcoin it value I think it because of it higher demand in the society in the sense that the more Bitcoin is been mined and  the more it been wanted by people, the higher the value becomes. therefore Bitcoins value lies in it scarcity and increasing demand.

 if the price of one Bitcoin where to reach 514,000, Bitcoin market capitalization would reach approximately 15% of the global currency market.


https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/100314/why-do-bitcoins-have-value.asp#:~:text=Bitcoin%20demonstrates%20some%20attributes%20for,of%20the%20global%20currency%20market.

what do you think?