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Comment by miles | Hacker News Reader

plock succinctly summarized[1] the "intrinsic value" of the dollar (at least to those responsible for paying U.S. taxes):

"If we take 'intrinsic value' to mean 'having some use other than to simply trade away again to someone else, or being backed by something with intrinsic value', then the dollar has intrinsic value in that it is backed by freedom from being prosecuted by the US government for non-payment of taxes."

Of course, not even gold can be said to possess "intrinsic value".[2]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7098034

[2] https://medium.com/@mormo_music/bitcoin-has-no-intrinsic-val...

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Based on that argument, I'm not sure why it's incorrect to characterize Bitcoin as having intrinsic value that is backed by the guarantee that you can provably transfer them directly to another party by a mere exchange of information.

(Yes, there is a lot of BS that is currently involved in Bitcoin's market prices, but I don't think it's correct to characterize it as having zero intrinsic value.)

There is no such thing as "intrinsic value" all value is subjective.

A glass of water would be priced differently in the middle of the desert as opposed to next to the ocean.

Given that the ocean is saltwater and thus not potable, I'd expect the glass of water to have roughly the same value by the ocean and in the desert.

What defines the glass of water's price is how easy it is to get potable water where you are - in both your contexts, that's largely defined by whether there is civilization nearby.

Either way, the glass of water still has intrinsic value - it will help humans and animals stay alive when drunk.

Fiat currency has almost no such practical value (toilet paper and textile applications are two I've seen elsewhere in this thread, which is true for paper money but not cryptocurrencies).

That's the point of the phrase "intrinsic value."

It's not an _objective_ value, where the price is strictly-defined or inherent to the object. It's intrinsic, meaning that all participants in the economic system have a use other than trade for the item in question.

It seems like whenever it's mentioned, the term "intrinsic value" just introduces confusion, since people need to redefine it differently from the common use of the word "intrinsic", as that would be incompatible with subjective value.

What you're suggesting here sounds closer to "practical value", maybe?

That just means there is no specific amount of value.

Water has intrinsic value, in the form of it's many direct utilities.

You could trade the water for some other good or service, or you could drink the water.

You can't do anything with a dollar except trade it to get something else that has some intrinsic value.

The dollar is only a symbol for some value. It has no value directly itself.

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