Like gold is not just based on gold if you ask me, it is just the market decided to play with it, and wealthy people are playing with it, you could give them literally manure, and they will make a huge market out of manure and act as if it is something super valuable and buy and sell accordingly.
ever heard of commodities? manure is a commodity just like oil or natural gas. or hay. its tangible product that people will pay for.
gold sits on 2 markets.. commodities and assets.
the commodity features are the electronics and jewellery stuff it can create
the assets features are the underlying mining cost, scarcity equalling the store of value aspects
bitcoin fits the asset category. not the commodity category
atleast try to not confuse the two markets and their different features/utilities they are used for
..
yes some say that bitcoin is becoming more of a commodity(raw item that makes other items) due to the whole 'sidechain' tokenisation thing.
but bitcoin as just bitcoin was/has been more of the asset class.
yes bitcoin is not physical. so its not "tangible". but tangible is not a synonym of intrinsic. they mean totally different things
lets take 3 other things..
a patent, a mortgage agreement, and a brand trademark
these 3 things do not have to be tangible themselves. (paper) they can be digital.
these 3 things do not have to be backed by tangible things
yes a mortgage agreement is backed by the collateral of the physical house.
but a patent is just a agreement, an idea. whereby it comes with the emotion that it permits the owner licence to do something or not do something where there is emotion that makes others fear being sued if they tresspass the idea, use the idea without the owners permission
a brand does not need to be physically stolen. (steal the contract put in a vault) it can be stolen via being used maliciously in slander or in copyright/counterfeit/phishing
these 3 things have value and can be traded electronically as they have value. all for different reasons.
its not all based on all having value based on something tangible.
EG a mortgage might have some intrinsic value based on the physical collateral. but most of the institutional derivatives trading of mortgage debt is based on the analysis of likelyhood of people defaulting/not paying. which is not about the house itself but about the emotional and cost/repayment risk of the person with debt. and how much some other institution values their own risk/reward to buy that debt at pennies on the dollar to pursue the debt.
when you start to look passed the narrow mind of "tangible" and seek out what other things are built into the underlying features of things of value. you might start to realise its not all about tangible, especially in the digital age where people can own digital property like a electronically signed patent/contract or a website brand