Taking Care of Bitcoin
New to Bitcoin? Well, everyone was new to Bitcoin at some point. Taking Care of Bitcoin is the first stop on your Bitcoin journey. We talk to people from all walks of life and answer the basic questions common to every Bitcoin noob. We're trying to onboard as many freedom fighters as possible. Let's take care of it! TCB baby!
Taking Care of Bitcoin
TCB Short - Why Does Bitcoin Have Value?
Today we answer the question: Why Does Bitcoin Have Value?
- Bitcoin isn't backed by anything
- Monetary parameters that give something value
- Absolute scarcity
- Decentralization/Trust minimization
- Security/Immutability
- Bitcoin is digital property rights
- Global, neutral money
And more!
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Hey everybody. Welcome back to TCB for another TCB Short for the short. Today we're gonna be tackled the question. Why does Bitcoin have value? So it's a question that everybody asks. Bitcoin isn't backed by anything, so why does it have value? So that's what we're gonna get into today. So the counterpoint to that is, well, what gives dollars or gold value? Uh, historically, dollars were only valuable because they were backed by gold. So prior to 1971, before the Nixon shock. Dollars were backed and supposedly redeemable for gold. But what is gold backed by? Nobody really ever asks that question. What? They ask what Bitcoin is backed by, but they don't ever ask what gold is backed by. And gold is backed, isn't backed by anything. Gold won out. An evolutionary battle for value because it met monetary parameters better than anything else that we could find in the natural world. So gold became money because gold was the best money until Bitcoin. Bitcoin has value because it solves real monetary problems better than any of our existing alternatives. It's really as simple as that. What gives anything. Value, particularly monetary value. So money historically emerges just like gold did when it has meets certain parameters. So when it has scarcity, meaning there's a limited supply, it has durability, meaning it doesn't decay, it has di visibility. So it's easy to break into units, smaller units for transactions. It has portability, so it's easy to move. Fungibility, which means the units are interchangeable with each other and it has acceptability, so others recognize it as having value. So gold did this for thousands of years, although imperfectly it had limited divisibility. It's difficult to move. It's not very portable, it's hard to verify. Fiat now does this generally by decree. Fiat is not scarce as we know by just the accelerating inflation rate and the accelerating debasement because of our insolvent debt position. So, Bitcoin does these things by code. It was purpose built, engineered to meet these monetary parameters. Exactly. Bitcoin when it comes to its scarcity, it's absolutely scarce. It's finite supply. Fixed supply, 21 million Bitcoin forever. So no central authority could print more Bitcoin. They can't change the rules unilaterally. Uh, and if you look at this in contrast to the United States dollar the United States dollar supply has expanded incredibly. It's up over 40% just since. 2020. So if you're holding dollars, you've lost over 40% of your value just over the past five years. The debt position of the country is untenable. It's insolvent. And it's gonna mathematically force further debasement of our currency moving forward. So, uh, the central bank Fed Promise to be good stewards of the money, that promise has been broken. But with Bitcoin, the scarcity is not promised. It's provable by code. So Bitcoin is the first asset with guaranteed scarcity. So if you save in Bitcoin, you could guarantee that your energy saved in Bitcoin is not going to be. Debased, it's not going to be inflated away. Why else does Bitcoin have value? Bitcoin has value because it has, it's a decentralized network and therefore has trust minimization. So in Bitcoin there's no CEO, there's no government, there's no issuer. It is secured by thousands of independent nodes on a network worldwide, and global miners offer up processing power to compete for block rewards and secure the network. So it's this voluntary opt-in. All of these nodes, thousands all over the world are opting in to give processing power to secure this network, so you don't need to trust. Anyone, you don't need to trust any centralized authority, so you don't need to trust a bank, which our banks offer nothing for our deposits. They re ate our money and they keep the yield for themselves. You don't have to trust governments who are all in insolvent debt positions. Uh, they're inflating away. Our savings is a matter of policy at this point because they can't pay their bills, and you don't have to trust corporations that care not about you. They care only about their shareholders. And they're laid in with human fallibility and operational risk. So in Bitcoin, you're just trusting math. It doesn't really require trust at all. You could verify everything yourself because it's just a fully transparent mathematical network. So there's value in that. There's value in removing the need for trust in. Uh, why else does Bitcoin have value? Because it's secure and it's immutable. So Bitcoin, the network itself is the most secure computer network on planet Earth. All the transactions are public, they're verifiable and they're immutable. They cannot be changed. You cannot attack the Bitcoin network unless you were to take over more than 50% of the nodes worldwide, which are. Tens of thousands of different computers running the software that are completely geo dislocated. So that's a very, almost an essentially impossible thing to do. So that security creates confidence in the network, and confidence creates. Value. Uh, why else is Bitcoin valuable? Bitcoin is valuable because it is digital property, so it's the first digital asset that you can truly own. It's ownable. You can own it yourself. You can hold it yourself. There's no counterparty risk. So if you hold the keys to your Bitcoin, you own that Bitcoin. It could be stored just in your head. You can memorize a password or seed phrase and you could just have the Bitcoin.'cause the Bitcoin actually sits on the Bitcoin network. Your Bitcoin is controlled by keys that allows you to move it around, but you could store those keys in your head and they don't have to exist anywhere else. You then can move that Bitcoin across. Any jurisdiction in the world in a matter of minutes. You compare that to a perfectly ownable asset that you can digitally move across the world in minutes. Compare that to gold, which is very difficult to move. Uh, it's very. Hard to send from one place to another. Compare that to another store value like real estate, which is completely immobile and you're stuck in a certain jurisdiction and you cannot escape that jurisdiction's rules or taxation, et cetera, and compare that to stocks or bank deposits, which are all permissioned. You essentially have to ask another entity to get permission to use your own money or get access to your own value, whereas Bitcoin, you truly own it yourself. So. Bitcoin is property rights in the digital age and property rights are valuable. Uh, why else is Bitcoin value? Bitcoin is valuable because it is a global neutral money. It works 24 7 anywhere on Earth. It cannot be censored. It cannot be confiscated. It cannot be debased away. The same rules in Bitcoin exist for individuals. Corporations, governments, nobody is above the rules. Everybody works under the exact same rule set, which needless to say, is not true in our current monetary system. Uh, so this is especially valuable in certain places. I mean, you could we kind of have a certain amount of financial privilege in the United States. These kind of attributes are especially valuable in places where inflation is very, very high. It's getting to a point that it's getting high in the United States, but it's nothing like a Venezuela or in Argentina, Turkey, Iran et cetera. It's. It's great for places where banking access is limited. The financial infrastructure in the United States is pretty good, but most of the global south is not banked at all. And then it's also great for places where capital controls exist. Think of, uh, China or North Korea where even if you want to get your money out of that country, they make it very, very difficult to do so. Whereas since it's an uncensorable network, anyone can use Bitcoin to move any money anywhere on Earth. So Bitcoin solves monetary problems for all people, and value grows as adoption spreads globally. It's just solving the monetary problems that people have in their own country or their own jurisdiction. So that gives it value. So when people say, why does Bitcoin have value, Bitcoin has value because it's scarce, it's secure. It's decentralized, it's permissionless, it's globally accessible. It's resistant to inflation and censorship, so it has value because it is superior to all other monies. If you think about how gold as a store of value, we know that to be valuable. We look at our currencies that we exchange fiat currencies, they're a media exchange. We know that they have value. They're, we, they're viewed as being valuable. If you think of Visa, PayPal, Venmo, payment networks, we think those are valuable. So if Bitcoin does all the above, it's a store value, it's a meat of exchange. It has a built-in payment network. So if gold, fiat, and payment networks are valuable, surely the one money that does all the things is more valuable. So. Bitcoin isn't backed by anything because it is the thing. It is the thing that meets monetary parameters best. So when people ask, why does Bitcoin have value, Bitcoin has value because it solves real monetary problems better than any other money. So we are watching not only dollars, but all Fiat currencies being printed. Without limit. We are watching gold push violently through all time highs, over$5,000 an ounce. So gold is telling us the money is broken. The next question that comes is, well, what fixes it? So gold leads people to the problem, and I pretend that Bitcoin offers the solution. So that is why Bitcoin. Has value. I hope that helps y'all take care. Till next time, we'll see you soon.