
Bitcoin value based mostly on belief - egusa
http://sociable.co/technology/cryptocurrency-value-bitcoin/
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blakdawg
These ideas are very, very old - Adam Smith and John Locke were writing about
the difference between an item's "use value" (how useful it is) and its
"exchange value" (what you can trade for it) in the 1700's, and Karl Marx
spent a lot of time on this in his book Capital, first published in 1867.

I guess it's worth restating this stuff (because obviously everyone _didn 't_
get the memo) but it's misleading to present these insights as if they were
new. It may be that the ideas have never occurred to some people before - but
while it's nice to think up smart things all by yourself, it's even nicer to
begin with an education about what's already been figured out, so one can work
on new problems instead of centuries' old problems.

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kinkrtyavimoodh
This is such a hilarious non-article. Just a bunch of people being quoted
repeating Econ-101 truisms, and even those presented in a shaky manner.

> "Kardashian is only famous for being famous, as she enjoys no other
> intrinsic, artistic value as a performer or entertainer."

Even if she did have artistic talent, the 'value' of that talent would still
be based on whether people wanted to listen to her or watch her perform, so
it's still fundamentally linked to her desirability and people's belief in it
or valuation of it.

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WalterSear
As opposed to which fiat currency?

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celticninja
I think that Bitcoin has done one thing really well and that is to make people
understand more about money and how it works. This argument that it has no
intrinsic value can be applied to every fiat currency used the world over.
Whenever someone asks this I ask them what intrinsic value EUR, GBP or USD
has, some people genuinely think/thought that the bank of England will
exchange you £10 worth of gold for a £10 note. Explaining to them that not
only is this not true but that there is nothing that gives a £10 note any
value other than other people believe it to be worth £10 is a real eye opener
for them. Explaining then that bitcoin is worth $x because people think it is
worth $x makes so much more sense after that.

