The AudioBook Guide

It’s a common question many nocoiners ask: What is the intrinsic value of Bitcoin? However, determining what gives Bitcoin its value, or any asset for that matter, isn’t as straightforward as it might seem.

While some assets’ intrinsic value are clearer than others, the truth is ‘intrinsic value’ could be different for different people, and people will generally look for results to suit their cognitive bias.

But intrinsic value can be measured, and Bitcoin’s features make it arguably more measurable than other assets.

Rather than work out the intrinsic value of Bitcoin, let’s first look at what it means exactly.

‘Intrinsic value‘ is a term often used to estimate an asset’s worth through the use of fundamental and technical analysis.

There’s no universal standard for calculating the intrinsic value of an asset, but determining the qualitative, quantitative and perceptual factors of an asset we can assert value.

Intrinsic value is not a definitive gauge of an asset’s overall value either, and the market value of the asset might not coincide with the intrinsic value.

When this happens and both metrics deviate, opportunities to profit arise for savvy investors.

However, if both metrics are close, investors can use the ‘intrinsic value’ as validation that the market value of an asset is fair.

The resurgence of cryptocurrencies to the top of the news agenda has been one of the defining trends in fintech of the past six months.

This, of course, has been driven in part by the rise in the value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The profits crypto investors have seen recently has piqued the interest of others looking to get into trading, and this is driving momentum for crypto awareness as a whole.

But it isn’t only crypto’s worth as an asset that is generating headlines. For years we’ve been waiting to see when digital currencies would reach their full potential as a payment method as well as a store of value. And, despite the continued wild fluctuations in the value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies throughout 2021, there are signs that this may be the year we see progress.

For example, El Salvador has recently passed legislation establishing Bitcoin as legal tender, which is a first for the industry. More nations in Latin America are also indicating interest and will potentially follow suit.

bitcoinClean aims to overcome the issue of vast energy consumption with high carbon emissions for mining digital currencies by exclusively using renewable energy. Therefore bitcoinClean introduces the proof-of-greenness protocol to verify the use of green energy.

bitcoinClean will be the first coin mined only with renewable energy. It relies on a network that is powered by Solar, Wind, Hydro, Thermal, Biogas or Tidal energy. Every node must undergo a peer review to participate in the network.

We want to make bitcoinClean the currency of the future for everyone who cares.

Bitcoin fluctuated Tuesday after China’s central bank and a regulator in the capital city took action against a company that was allegedly providing cryptocurrency-related services.

The largest cryptocurrency had risen as much as 3.7% to $35,094 before dropping back after the People’s Bank of China and Beijing’s local financial regulator ordered a company in the city to cancel its business registration. As of 7:55 a.m. in New York it was trading 1% higher at $34,194.

Financial and payments institutions should not directly or indirectly provide virtual currency-related services, the PBOC and the Beijing regulator said in a statement. It named marketing, promotion and display, and location-setting among prohibited activities.

The internet can be censored, partially. Sites can be banned, and governments in dictatorial countries can even block access to the internet for all. That’s because the internet still relies on centralized servers that ISP providers and governments can control.

Bitcoin is unbannable because it relies on node decentralization. Its distributed software has grown large enough globally that it is impossible to shut down. Even if every country in the world came together to ban bitcoin (which would revoke the First Amendment in the U.S. and cause an uproar across the free world) they would find that Bitcoin is unbannable.

And in the extreme and unlikely case that all its core developers were killed tomorrow and access were hijacked by the IMF, the software is already in the wild, which means users simply won’t download the new hijacked version. They will continue running the software that’s already working as everyone can see and audit the code.

That Bitcoin relies heavily on the internet is still a strong argument–today. However, through mesh networking, node decentralization, and opensource distributed software, that reliance is not total.

I know manias. I’ve seen them again and again – hordes of people find out about a product or idea, back it with all their might, and are angry when anyone refuses to genuflect to their sacred cow. It happened to Notion Ink, it happens to Apple, it happens to Blackberry, and it happened in the vaccine autism scare, in the truthers, and in countless other subcultures who manifest their undying love with endless devotion and unremitting anger. “Beliefs make history, especially when they are wrong,” said historian Will Durant. “It is for errors that men have most nobly died.”

Bitcoin is on the verge of being wrong.

To be clear, I’m a BTC fan. I understand the value of the system as a .zip file for wealth. An unmonitored, seamless, and international transaction system is the future and, in the end, it will become part of the status quo. But Bitcoin has an image problem. Its followers see themselves as freedom fighters, attacking outsiders with vengeance and talking up their own accomplishments in the language of the already victorious. Forums like /r/bitcoin on Reddit are endlessly effusive, crowing that this cafe is accepting bitcoin and this dentist is filling cavities for bitcoin. These slight wins are literally meaningless, as important to the future of bitcoin as their decision to stock a certain type of Roma syrup. These incremental hoots make it seem like bitcoin is growing. It isn’t, at least not in a global sense. These new wins are simply PR ploys and the bitcoins exchanged are immediately converted into fiat currency.

Then take the Winklevii, white knights in the bitcoin army, who are asking for little to no regulation of the bitcoin markets, a prospect that will further drive away “respectable” users. As it stands now, bitcoin is used to buy drugs and maybe stuff from Overstock. Also, evidently, Sacramento Kings tickets. There is no impetus for the average user to dump money into an unregulated system that appears as volatile as the currency of some banana republic run by a capricious dictator. There are ways to solve this but the Winklevii asking for an unregulated market for their investments is not one of them.

In an after-market release Thursday, Virginia-based MicroStrategy reported a second-quarter loss of $299.3 million, compared to a $3 million profit in last year's second quarter, on approximately $125 million in sales, up 13.4% from a year earlier.

Fueling its overall losses, the company disclosed a $424.8 million impairment loss due to the declining value of its bitcoin holdings in the quarter, during which the cryptocurrency's prices plummeted 40%.

The impairment loss reflects a decline in bitcoin’s carrying value, but it can effectively be recouped if prices recover—not out of the question given the coin’s volatility and past resurgence.

In a statement alongside earnings, Saylor touted the company's successful debt offering in June, after which the firm purchased an additional 13,005 bitcoins for $489 million in cash.

As of June 30, MicroStrategy owns about 105,085 bitcoins, worth nearly $4.2 billion based on Thursday prices of about $39,760.

Meme coins are rallying with the best of them as bitcoin, which has a 46.2% dominance rate, continues to dictate the direction of the market. Dogecoin and fellow dog-themed cryptocurrency Baby Doge Coin are riding the bitcoin-fueled tide higher, but they each have catalysts of their own that warrant a rally.

Baby Doge soared as much as 54% in the last 24 hours after a roller coaster of a week. This meme coin was created to outperform its meme father Dogecoin on transaction speed and its deflationary nature.

In early July, Baby Doge burned 10 quadrillion coins — valued at USD 7.2 million at the time — to mark its one-month birthday and in a nod to Elon Musk’s tweet about the cryptocurrency. Coin burns take those tokens out of circulation and fuel the scarcity narrative.