Why does money need to be pinned to an asset of real value? I don't think value in and of itself is important for a money - we mainly need money as a medium of exchange - money does need to have specific qualities though - it needs to be scarce, it needs to be hard to copy, it needs to be easy to store over time and it needs to be easy to transfer over distance - using an "asset of value" is just a means to an end for ticking off those features, or using an IOU for an asset of value is a workaround to satisfy those requirements more efficiently.
However, using a digital currency such as BTC is a far more efficient way of satisfying all the needs of a sound money without having to use workarounds for want of a better system. BTC is essentially "Digital transformation" for money; making use of technology to improve what was previously an inefficient system.
And that is really where BTCs value lies. Of course this is just my opinion and I am investing in the technology accordingly. I might be wrong. Who knows. But we will see.
I don't know much about ADA, but I am with you 100% on the BTC front.
Also, well done on this one! So you bought at $62,000, at the time of this post its now $67,444 so you made almost 9% profit in 4 days? Not too bad.
Of course it depends if you actually realise that profit or not, by selling, and whether you do that depends if you are in it for short term or long term but none the less, good shout
People say this all the time about 'real value'..
But what *IS* real value?
Let's look at some other assets.
Gold..
It has "real value". Or does it?
Today it does, but why? Does it have some intrinsic magical value?
Or, is it just useful for people in the world today?
The reason gold became valuable was because it's shiny and it's malleable.
You could melt it down and make shiny things.
People liked shiny things. It made them feel.. important.
So it was used to melt down and make coins, because it had this "intrsinic value" of being shiny and making people feel important.
That's really it.. Because it's fucking shiny. lol.
It does have some uses in electronics, but 80% of its use today is in jewelry.
What about property?
Property is stone, bricks, glass, metal.
It's only useful today because we can build houses of it.
Take a $50 million house and put it on mars.
Does it still have value? Or is it just a pile of metal and rock.
What's the value?
The value is it's in a location that has other benefits. A nice view, shops nearby, people nearby, low crime, transport, schools etc.
It really has very little intrinsic value.
The conclusion here is that really NOTHING has intrinsic value.
Things have value when people find them USEFUL and they have a purpose. When they make our lives better in some way.
1) Gold: Makes our lives better by feeling more important. Shiny object.
2) Stone/brick/metal(houses): Makes our lives better by having a nice place to live. Feeling important, feeling safe, feeling comfortable, convenience in location.
Another important thing here is SCARCITY.
Roses are beautiful. They're not scarce. If they were super scarce, they would be incredibly expensive. They also die.
Glass is fairly beautiful. But it's not scarce..
So for something to have long term value it needs
1) To be useful. To have some sort of value to the economy/people within the economy of the time. It needs to improve their life/wellbeing in some way.
2) To be scarce.
Is bitcoin useful?
Yes, very. In many many ways. It's incredibly useful and becoming even more useful. It's a unique, established and proven technology. It's proven to be secure. It's proven to work. It's proven to be decentralized. No one can control it or manipulate it. Its usefulness is ENORMOUS.
Is bitcoin scarce?
Yes, fundamentally.
So anyone that talks about it not being real, or not being tied to a physical asset, really hasn't thought about WHY a physical asset even has value in the first place.
Basically, a physical asset does NOT have value because it's physical. It has value because it's USEFUL.
Gold is expensive because it's USEFUL and it's SCARCE.
Bitcoin is expensive because it's USEFUL and it's SCARCE.
Physical or non-physical are completely irrelevant. They don't even enter the equation. The world is full of physical things that have no value.
Really, the whole non-physical asset having value thing should be completely put to bed if people just break down what causes value in the first place. Essentially value = ax^3 * by^2 * cz where x is scarcity, y is usefulness and z is security, or the ability to prevent someone from taking that value easily. If security is ultra low, like 0.000000001, then the value will go to zero. If value is low, 0.001, then it'll go to zero faster, because 0.001^2 is 0.000001, and if scarcity is < 1, then the impact is even greater since it's a cube.