There is strictly no such thing as intrinsic value. There is only supply and demand. We've talked about this before, but I guess there's no convincing you.
Sure there is. I can use gold for instance to manufacture bitcoin miners. This means gold has an intrinsic value. Can that value change over time? Sure. However, today, right now, I can't do anything with a bitcoin except pay to move it to a different wallet - and stare at it.
I can take gold and turn it into electronics, jewelry and so on. I can do things with it beyond looking at it. What that's worth is subject to market value, but intrinsic value is a math-based derivation of the present value of an asset based on its attributes and qualities (and their utility and marketability), not calculated from what the market will bear for its direct transaction.
Not that I'm advocating gold, I'm just using it as an example.
Intrinsic value is a subjective matter of philosophy.
Pickled cucumbers cannot be used to manufacture bitcoin miners, yet one can surely argue that they have “value” and a certain “price” (= “market value“) which is expected to be a proxy for the perceived intrinsic value.
How you perceive the intrinsic value is subjective, while market value is (though to be) objective. For example, if you personally don’t know what to do with pickles then they have zero (or even negative) value to you. Other people might have different valuation.
It's honestly, genuinely not a question of philosophy. It is in the "does anything mean anything?" way but we're not talking about that. We're using the economists definition. Which is well-defined and well structured and you can't just re-define away because it doesn't suit your narrative.
It's like trying to tell your debt collector "the real money is the friends we made along the way." Ok, maybe to you, but those kneecaps are still going to hurt in the morning.
> Pickled cucumbers cannot be used to manufacture bitcoin miners, yet one can surely argue that they have “value” and a certain “price” (= “market value“) which is expected to be a proxy for the perceived intrinsic value.
I cannot make sense of this argument. Pickled cucumbers have an intrinsic nutritional value. They're food. Sure they don't have calories, but they have vitamin A, K, calcium, potassium, sodium. You know, things you need, to live.
Folks are welcome to have their extrinsic valuation of pickles too, but that doesn't mean they don't also have an intrinsic value.
It’s an analogy, exposing the flaw in the previous statement:
> Intrinsic value is the calculated value of Bitcoin which remains $0.
You ascribe no intrinsic value to Bitcoin arbitrarily, because from your viewpoint there is no useful applications for it. And yet, one can use Bitcoin, for example, to store data on Bitcoin blockchain permanently, or to pay miners for performing transactions – this is intrinsic value, similar to nutritional value of pickles.
> You ascribe no intrinsic value to Bitcoin arbitrarily, because from your viewpoint there is no useful applications for it. And yet, one can use Bitcoin, for example, to store data on Bitcoin blockchain permanently, or to pay miners for performing transactions – this is intrinsic value, similar to nutritional value of pickles.
Not because there's no applications for it - there's crime - but because the value created doesn't accrue to Bitcoin, it accrues to the miners. You cannot use, touch, look at, do anything with a Bitcoin. You can pay miners to move it. That value accrues to miners.
[edit] It's like hoping your Starbucks gift cards go up in value because Starbucks sells more coffee.
There is strictly no such thing as intrinsic value. There is only supply and demand. We've talked about this before, but I guess there's no convincing you.