Noob here. Even if some places accept Bitcoin, the price is still quoted in dollars? Bitcoin's value per say is in US dollars, a fiat currency subject to inflation. If we remove the value based on the dollar, then is the price of Bitcoin just based on supply and demand?
The Bitcoin price is already based on the economic laws of supply and demand. We just need to measure it somehow and our fiat currency is one way. It is globally adopted and there is a force from the government to its usage. But, you can also measure it to other currencies
and cryptocurrencies. Each one evaluates it differently, that's why there isn't a standard price.
I also hear people like Cathie Woods and analysts at JP Morgan say Bitcoin will reach $500k or $140k respectively. I understand for stocks you can look at financial statements and make valuation models to calculate target prices, but for Bitcoin, is the value based on the scalability of network?
The preferably chosen word “price”, instead of value,
or the “market value” of Bitcoin is based
only but its supply and demand. The fact that halvings occur or that the network becomes scalable affects the supply and demand analogously.
The value is also based the difficulty to obtain (mine) it
This is a common mistake. Its value
isn't based on the difficulty. Its difficulty
is based on its value. Think about it, if there is more demand and the price rises, the difficulty rises too, because mining becomes more profitable. If there is less demand and the price falls, the difficulty does too.