mykopikid on Nostr: Bitcoin does not have intrinsic value or does it? There are 2 ways to look at ...

Bitcoin does not have intrinsic value or does it?

There are 2 ways to look at intrinsic value.
Financially and philosophically.

From a financial aspect…
According to ChatGPT:
Intrinsic value refers to the inherent worth of an asset, investment, or entity based on fundamental analysis without considering its current market price. This concept is commonly used in finance and investing to determine whether an asset is overvalued or undervalued by the market.

Essentially it is an attempt to determine the value of an asset without basing it on the current market price.

Philosophically, intrinsic value refers to the value of something in and of itself. The value that is not derived from the external forces like the market or someone’s personal preference or desire. The value that is not based on the majority of human’s perspective or even any human’s perspective.

As an example, for any particular object, if it is desired by just a single human out of the entire humanity, that object has inherent and intrinsic value to that single human.

Or we can consider nature itself. If all human would ceased to exist, oxygen or CO2 or H2O would still have intrinsic value to other creatures in the world.

Or even other intangible concepts like love, kindness, dignity… something that cannot be measured with any consensus in the financial world, would be considered to have intrinsic value by vast majority of people.

Thereby, if the question were to be posed if Bitcoin itself has intrinsic value, we cannot use the philosophical aspect to measure.

But then, Bitcoin is such a unique asset or system or network, that all existing models used to measure assets in the financial world are broken against it.

Let us consider the following properties of bitcoin where it stands alone amongst all the inventions of humanity.

1. It is likely the only invention of human that is scarce, where it’s unit cannot be increased. There will only ever be 2,099,999,997,690,000 units issued into the bitcoin network. While this is not a philosophical nor technical certainty, by all means and purposes, there is no reasonable game theory to increase the supply of bitcoin based on the known behaviour of the entire humanity throughout the ages. How can we find any significant consensus to devalue ourselves?

2. Bitcoin is the only network that cannot be destroyed barring the total elimination of the Internet and all the computer systems in the world permanently. Imagine a world with No Internet, No computers and nothing digital ever.

Based on these 2 properties of bitcoin, it’s intrinsic value is arguable the highest among all known human inventions.

And finally, someone may argue, what if one day people don’t want nor desire bitcoin anymore?

Of course, like everything in the human realm, if no human ever wants it, its value will drop to zero.

That is of course merely an attempt to postulate Philosophical possibilities. And i would say that is a futile attempt.

The pertinent question to ask is why human would not desire something that is scarce and durable? Humans through the ages has been in searching, seeking and storing that which is scarce and durable. People want beauty that is lasting, strength that endures, quality of lives that does not end.

Thereby, bitcoin is the definition of intrinsic value.