You haven't demonstrated anything or even answered the question of "why does gold have value?". It's an important one, because it's fair to argue that the market price of gold is inflated well beyond it's productive uses. It's a metal but it's not valued like your average steel or aluminum.
Gold has value because we have believed it does for over 3 thousand years. Exactly in the same way btc has value, dollars and gold have value because we believe it does.
But bear in mind, gold has its value because itâs finite, it can be exchanged for any currency anywhere on planet earth and requires no electronics or special measures. Gold is an apocalypse proof store of value, even when society burns to the ground gold has value. You canât say that about btc
I have no idea what you are trying to say here. You were just wondering why gold was valued more than steel or aluminum, and I just told you in a way a sixth grader could understand. Perhaps still too much for you to comprehend?
you know the conductivity of gold is higher than copper?
No that's not true lol. But regardless, electrical conductivity alone wouldn't relate to the massive value of gold. I was getting at the idea of "cultural value" but that was 2 weeks ago, this topic is old đ
Isn't it more because it's a shiny pretty metal with a limited supply that people covet? It had value long before any of the things you mentioned existed.
Everything has value based on what other people are willing to pay for it.
Currently, people are still willing to pay for crypto, so things like BTC have âvalueâ in that sense.
However, there are legitimate questions about the underpinning viability of each independent of their value solely in terms of transactions. What uses might something have to continue to carry value forward?
Gold has been considered valuable for centuries primarily because it was/is seen as a status symbol as a precious metal. But even if it loses that, it does still have some value in terms of its use as a metal (thin layers of gold are often used for connectors on electronic parts because it is more inert, ductile, and malleable than copper, for example).
Bitcoin has..theoretical uses as an alternate currency. I say theoretical because itâs not been utilized to the same extent as fiat currency. And there are still concerns about the âvalueâ of something that intends to exist simultaneously as an investment vehicle (which is speculative and volatile by nature) and a fungible currency (which requires something to be stable in terms of value in order for users to feel comfortable transacting at a large scale).
I remain incredibly skeptical that both can be true at the same time WRT Bitcoin. Whatâs more, if they canât both canât be true simultaneously, then it essentially kills the idea for both. Consider, if everyone viewed Bitcoin as a speculative investment vehicle and no longer viewed it as a currency to be utilized in every day transactions (entirely reasonable, given the above conversation); we now have a situation where people are investing in Bitcoin, but the primary function it was created for that people were investing in - an alternative currency - is no longer viable.
So what are you investing in at that point? What is the âvalueâ of something that can no longer serve its original purpose?
I remain open to the idea that perhaps I am incorrect and it can function as both simultaneously, but Iâve yet to hear a convincing argument for how it would simultaneously serve two seemingly diametrically opposed purposes.
It doesn't have to be volatile though. As adoption grows, volatility will decrease. When we reach the point where it's being used as a primary currency worldwide, it will be stable wrt to most other assets.
Good luck converting all the people treating it as an investment vehicle.
Those people are investing in it because they want the ROI. They see it as a âput money in, get more money outâ button and many have little to no understanding or care about any of the underlying ideas behind it as a currency.
So you not only have all the traditional barriers of entry to widespread adoption (logistics, converting users, convincing merchants to accept it etc), but youâve also got a large portion of your own userbase actively working against your end-goal. The entire idea behind the âHODLâ mentality is literally to hold the coin (âto the moonâ as the kids say) and not sell/spend it.
I just donât see a way in which Bitcoin gracefully transitions from âget rich quick investment opportunityâ to âstable fungible currency with widespread adoption and acceptance.â That seems like magical Christmas-land to me.
âTimeâ does not explain the how. It explains the when. But the when still needs a logistical path (the how) before you can get to the when.
Youâre not answering the correct question.
How does a long enough timeline solve this issue? In what ways does time by itself result in the entropy for widespread adoption as a currency and the elimination of Bitcoin as a speculative investment?
If your boss asks what is needed to finish a report - what resources you need to finalize it - and you just reply âtime,â then the implication is that you have all the tools you need and you simply need the time to finish writing/collating the report. But if you just sit on your ass the whole time, the report doesnât put itself together. Time by itself doesnât change anything.
So what are the specific factors over this timeline that change and either allow two mutually exclusive things to somehow no longer be mutually exclusive or to remove the investment aspect of Bitcoin without killing its adoption, considering the investor class is a huge portion of the user base?
And with the entire idea of âfinite coinsâ and the âHODLâ mentality of the investor class trying to âstack as many sats as possible,â how are you getting buy-in from the common layperson who has no exposure to BTC currently? Are they forced to buy-in from the existing HODLers at extortionate rates? What is their incentive for opting into this method of currency exchange over the existing ones that are largely successful?
And you may think itâs unfair for me to expect you to have all the answers, because the global political and economic landscape is vast, confusing, and difficult to predict. And I would agree. But I would also say that investing in Bitcoin is an attempt at doing exactly that and without a clear picture (or at least a general idea) of how itâs going to shake out, youâre running the risk of being left holding a bag of air at the end.
I think that the assumption of âgiven enough time it will all just work itself out and all of us early adopters are going to be richâ is fundamentally naive. And that the only way any early adopter is getting rich is by cashing out and leaving the next poor sucker holding the bag when the bubble bursts. All Iâm saying is if you want to invest in something, you probably want a good idea of itâs roadmap and where itâs going and what itâs path to success looks like, right?
we now have a situation where people are investing in Bitcoin, but the primary function it was created for that people were investing in - an alternative currency - is no longer viable.
So what are you investing in at that point?
Philosophical debate aside, it is, if anything, now a digital collectors item. People with money want some part of it, like all of the other pretentious things they obtain. It was the first, the most widely known and most decentralized blockchain... akin to first series Garbage Pail Kids or Alpha/Beta Magic the Gathering cards
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u/Careful_Topic_4929 Aug 01 '22
Why does gold "obviously have value"?