As is said previouslyAs is said previously, Bitcoin is building an Internet of value. Then what is value? In some economic knowledge, value is regarded as undifferentiated or abstract human labor condensed in commodities. In other words, the amount of labor in the construction of a commodity, presented in the form of value. Or we can say, value is decided by the work done in the commodity.
As I see it, Bitcoin is the product of value aggregation. Bitcoin mining follows the law of conservation of energy, converting the wind, water, and solar energy into electricity, and then into hashing power by mining machine and finally Bitcoin will be dug out. That is a process of storing the energy of nature in the form of Bitcoin. The stored Bitcoin is value. Bitcoin built a value network where value is exchanged and transferred in the form of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is building a value Internet system for human society, bringing great reference to human civilization. I prefer to explore the essence of things through the appearance and discover the general laws hidden. In economics, value is regarded as undifferentiated or abstract human labor in commodities. So how is the labor shaped? What is the nature of value?
What criteria do rankings like Forbes World's Billionaires adopt? I think most of them are based on the market value of corporate stock assets owned by the founders. Then what's the standard in the market value calculation?
There are generally two formulas.
- One is, stock price times equity.
The amount of equity is typically fixed, the fluctuation in the stock price gives rise to the change in the company's market value. This formula is an external representation of the market value of a company.
- The other is the internal presentation. The formula is: market value = E*PE.
E refers to the company's annual net profit, PE is the price-to-earnings ratio, the result is the market value of a company and the value of the company. Supposing, a company's annual net profit is $20 million and its price-to-earnings ratio is 40, its market value is $800 million.
In the traditional stock capital market, a company’s PE is often used to see whether its stock is overvalued or undervalued. Providing, compared with similar companies, PE of a company is very low, then its market value is underestimated and investment is suggested. About PE, it is a respectable index reflecting the profit and risk of a stock. The current market price per share divided by the company’s after-tax profit per share is PE. Normally, it indicates how many years the company need to accumulate profits to reach the current market value level. The expected profitability in the future cannot be ignored in the evaluation for the market value of a listed company.
Now let's think about why E and PE are required in investigating the value of a company.Luxury clothes usually costs tens of thousands of dollars, while ordinary brand is worth only few hundred dollars.
What is supporting the value of luxury? In addition, the diamond, which is not practical but turns out to be expensive relying on some beautiful stories, rendering it romantic and a symbol of pure love. Where does the value of diamond come from?
And gold. Why can it work as currency in the history of human civilization for thousands of years and then lose that function in the past five decades?
Where does the value of gold come from?Now, back to Bitcoin.
Why is Bitcoin fairly valuable? What is the source of its value?What is the nature of value?
As far as I'm concerned, the value of many things is factually given by human consensus during the evolution of civilization. The essence of value is consensus and the process of gaining value is the process of reaching consensus.The rule that E and PE can tell the value of a company is a convention made and recognized by people. Stockholders, enterprises, countries and the public have all approved this consensus. The bigger the group is, the stronger the influence grows, and the greater the value base achieves.
The whole mankind treat diamond as the emblem of love, then the mineral gets extra value; luxury brand persists in advertising and telling stories relevant, so its value gets raised. Consumers of luxury have reached a consensus with the brand on its premium. The reason why gold could become currency in history is that thousands of individuals had reached a consensus. In the past half centuries, gold was deprived of its currency function, which is another consensus shared by each sovereign country through signing laws.
Think about how consensus on human society is accomplished. Some by violence, some by negotiation, some by legal agreement and some by multi-party cooperation.Value itself is illusory, invisible and intangible, yet it actually exists. It is undifferentiated or abstract human labor condensed in commodities. Such human labor is substantially given by collective consensus.
Therefore, the nature of value is consensus.Value shows up only in commodity exchange. Value is the content of exchange value, and exchange value is the manifestation of value. Its essence is ultimately embodied by consensus, which is given by human collectives.
In the human society before, the formation of consensus was achieved one after another by historical evolution, which took a long time, and value was gradually manifested. In the era of blockchain, the generation of value is firstly confirmed by consensus mechanism at the technical level. Simultaneously, in the corresponding community, let community members agree on it. This is the essence of Bitcoin and value.That’s some of my thinking about the nature of consensus. I’d love to know yours.