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Comment by JoeAltmaier | Hacker News Reader

So there is inherent value in burning piles of cash, because 'cash went into creating it'? I don't get the logic.

Yeah, that's like saying that a pound of shredded bills has value. Like, yeah, you can trade it, and yeah, value was spent to create it, but you can't get that back.

It's not like buying bitcoin gives you back electricity.

It is the scarcity that creates the 'value'. Unless everybody walks away from the idea that it is worth something (may happen), then its value is still driven by how difficult it is to create some.

Scarcity doesn't create value. A copy of my personal memoir is extremely scarce, yet the value is zero. Further, bitcoin only has the illusion of scarcity, and clearly that's enough, but as was demonstrated by BCH, the supply of coins can be trivially increased. Enthusiasts will argue "BCH is not BTC, they're two separate currencies", but this is missing the point that "crypo-tokens" are an unlimited resource that is artificially limited through a consensus that can change at any time.

The total volume of my excrement over the course of my lifetime is scarce. Yet it is worthless to investors. Scarcity alone does not make something valuable.

I understand that you consider bitcoin to be sht and do not want it. It seems enough people have confidence in its mechanisms though. So that would be scarcity+confidence that gives it its value. But the same thing happens with the next crypto currency (your neighbors' sht) so maybe it is worth nothing after all. Not taking a stance, just trying to understand.

Interesting off-topic tidbit that is not meant to derail your point:

You could probably send the shredded bills to a US department that examines mutilated cash and get compensated.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/06/30/.../episode-78... https://www.moneytips.com/mutilated-currency-101

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