The question continues to be asked around the world, what is the value of Bitcoin??? Who is using it?? What about adoption since it's been around since 2009....Is this ever going to happen?? Is it a currency, a store of value, commodity, security?
I reference from the Bitcoin founder the following:
Why do bitcoins have value?
Bitcoins have value because they are useful as a form of money. Bitcoin has the characteristics of money (durability, portability, fungibility, scarcity, divisibility, and recognizability) based on the properties of mathematics rather than relying on physical properties (like gold and silver) or trust in central authorities (like fiat currencies). In short, Bitcoin is backed by mathematics. With these attributes, all that is required for a form of money to hold value is trust and adoption. In the case of Bitcoin, this can be measured by its growing base of users, merchants, and startups. As with all currency, bitcoin's value comes only and directly from people willing to accept them as payment.
Today Fiat currency is backed by our trust in government, if tomorrow we lost faith in our government the currency would lose it's value, since the 1970's Fiat currency, especially USD is not backed by any commodity like it was before (GOLD) so how does it hold it's value. The intrinsic value of Bitcoin is the Mathematics behind (Instead of Government or Commodity) and the trust of it's community.
In a utopian world I would love to see a Global Bitcoin which is used by all mankind, decentralised from the central government but hard to see how that is possible with national currency,regulators and markets and we are more likely to see Bitcoin as a store of value and each government adopting their own cryptocurrency using Ripple or Stella for example as the rails for money (Token) transfer worldwide.
2018 will be the year that the underlying blockchain comes to life, but also lays the foundation for what the global currencies will look like, so expect more regulation and more volatility due to all the challenges and expect major distruption in 2019 around currencies as the global markets and governments figure out how to embed this into their economies.
Get ready for a ride.
DM
