[henry_bone]

That's true of everything we use as money, including precious metals. You can't eat them, live in them, use them as weapons, walk down the street in them. They have value bacause we all agree that they do and we all agree to use them as a means to exchange that value. Also, and this is important and I should have said it first, they have value because their supply is restricted.

The same is true for crypto. It's fungible, private, and limited in supply. It's also independent of governments although they are doing their level best to correct that.

[Terr_]

> That's true of everything we use as money, including precious metals.

To exploit this chance for quote Terry Pratchett, on a book that does happen to be about currency and banking:

> ‘The world is full of things worth more than gold. But we dig the damn stuff up and then bury it in a different hole. Where’s the sense in that? What are we, magpies? Is it all about the gleam? Good heavens, potatoes are worth more than gold!’

> ‘Surely not!’

> ‘If you were shipwrecked on a desert island, what would you prefer, a bag of potatoes or a bag of gold?’

> ‘Yes, but a desert island isn’t [the city of] Ankh-Morpork!’

> ‘And that proves gold is only valuable because we agree it is, right? It’s just a dream. But a potato is always worth a potato, anywhere. A knob of butter and a pinch of salt and you’ve got a meal, anywhere. Bury gold in the ground and you’ll be worrying about thieves for ever. Bury a potato and in due season you could be looking at a dividend of a thousand per cent.’

-- Making Money by Terry Pratchett

[solatic]

Government fiat currencies have fundamental value because their taxes are denominated in their fiat currency, while their fiat currency is used to compensate the public sector for their labor. If you, as a private citizen, want to avoid the consequences of not paying your taxes (e.g. prison), you best find a way to get your hands on some of the fiat currency that has entered the economy via the public sector workers.

For a cryptocoin to have fundamental value, someone must be willing to accept it as payment. The only entities willing to do so currently are criminal enterprises and perhaps the El Salvadoran government (to pay taxes). All the other uses (like cross-border payments) rely on speculators on both ends providing liquidity for the exchange to fiat currency.

[pandaman]

It's mostly correct except it's just the governments that agree to take gold and silver to settle debts (no, going off "gold standard" did not change this, gold and silver are still accepted as bank reserves around the world). And governments have the power to take your property to settle your debts with them. So for anyone, who is a subject of a government assigned debt (via taxation usually), gold has very practical value as it allows to keep one's property.

The same is not generally true for crypto, perhaps in El Salvador they really take crypto to settle taxes but in any other country crypto only has value because of speculators.

[ninalanyon]

> the governments that agree to take gold and silver to settle debts (no, going off "gold standard" did not change this, gold and silver are still accepted as bank reserves around the world)

Really? Can you point us, or perhaps just me, to something that explains that and which countries this applies to? I think that I'd have a hard time paying the Norwegian tax authorities with gold or silver. In fact even paying them in cash would be difficult.

[losteric]

What are you talking about? We can wear gold, make weapons out of iron, cups out of copper… coins have both a fiat face value and real tangible value (the “floor”).

Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. It’s entirely belief.

That’s not a bad thing. MLMs can be very profitable, some turn into multi-generational institutions of faith.

I own bitcoin because it’s like buying a share of the Mormon church early on. Absolutely, do it! But comparing it with gold? Come on, be real.

[sgregnt]

Bitcoin physical value is that, one way or the other, billions of humans got atoms in their brains, arrange in such a way that they recognize bitcoins, and have a certain understanding of it's setup... this is a lot of atoms, and is no small fit.