For land, you can say that even in the case that society collapses it is still valuable. Or is it?
What exactly is the assumption that deems BTC's intrinsic value zero and land's value more than zero?
Gold has a very little intrinsic value. Decorative and tool making value due to its physical properties are there but they are minor comparatively.
BTC has none. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a value, of course but it’s simply a value within a certain ecosystem.
Not really true, the only reason it is not used much more widely in electronic components, despite being superior to copper, is the high price it has, because of its function as value storage.
That being said, it's still a very valuable material for electronics.
It's not true that gold is naturally superior, in fact Gold is often mixed with other metals to create alloys to overcome certain issues. Pure gold is too soft for most of the practical uses like jewellery for example, so they add copper to it.
For me the easiest way to determine if something has intrinsic value is ask yourself what would happen if you owned all of it (and couldn't be forced to give it up).
If you owned all the Bitcoin in the world, we wouldn't accept its use, and would just create another currency with identical properties.
If you owned all the land in the world, people would come to you to buy or rent it. You can't build a house or a factory unless someone is willing to sell or lease you the land. That's what makes it valuable.
In many ways, this is why we have the word "priceless". Things become priceless when, in certain contexts (for certain people at certain times), they will not be sold for any price. Land can be priceless because I can have a sentimental attachment to a particular place. Its value isn't derived from how many $'s people will pay for it.
Don’t all modern currencies work like this?
- If I save 100% of my money now, I can retire now (because clearly I don't need money to live).
- If I save 0% of my money now, I will never be able to retire (because I'll have none when I forfeit my income).
Retirement is not solely coupled to the amount of money you have. I personally have aspirations and enough money to not having to work for a few years. And still I work lots of hours to achieve certain goals that have nothing to do with increasing my money.
FI is solely determined by the amount of valuable assets you have
Most people also don't agree on huge salaries and bonuses for CEO's, in practice the people with money are willing to pay those perks. When people vote with their wallets, does it really matter what the people not voting are going to say?
The "you have nothing to lose but your chains"-argument just doesn't work on people who have more than enough junk to fill their stomachs (and brains) with.
Bitcoin adds anonymous violence, increased CO2 emissions, and subtracts brilliant minds that could be working on more important problems.
Capitalist, Communist or Anarchist - the land doesn’t care, it grows the tomatoes the same way.
The core of the human life is based on people processing materials to sustain biological processes and the rest of the humanity is built on top of it.
Intrinsic value comes from the ability to support that structure. At the top of the structure there are the higher ideals, like art and happiness and people who produce these are often rewarded with the goods from the bottom of the pyramid.
The problem with the BTC's "early adopters get rewarded extremely well and are entitled to all the goods for a liftime and generations to come" nature makes an extremely top heavy structure.
If that becomes a reality I suspect that a rubber hose cryptography breakthrough event will occur. After all, whoever has the private key, has the coins and the private key is transferable by force.
I'm annoyed that the intrinsic value argument is constantly being brought up even by economists against crypto currencies. I have a similar understanding of the concept as you have, in that the value derives from the material eventually - land being most valuable.
However, what many that say BTC has no intrinsic value neglect is the opportunistic value of the traditional banking sector. German Wirecard e.g. went broke and now its stock is worth nothing anymore. Seems there was no intrinsic value either except for a few office chairs I guess.
Nobody warned investors of that. But for Bitcoin, where corruption is less likely given its transparent structure, people keep talking about intrinsic value and how it apparently has none.
Sure, in this hype cycle Bitcoin has once again had a huge inflow of capital. But if you look at Bitcoin dominance charts, you can see that it is at an all-time low, and IMO will continue to be if its community stays so conservative.
Societies with no concept of private land ownership wage war. Nomadic tribes with no private or even communal land ownership structures wage war at the scales they can. Tying warmongering to private ownership or money is oversimplifying.