[ForHackernews]

The difference is that speculative traders in a normal market are making bets about an actual real underlying value. A share in a company represents some productive asset, a USD can be used to pay tax obligations, even gold has industrial applications.

What is driving the value of a bitcoin?

[jerguismi]

> What is driving the value of a bitcoin?

No one knows, maybe some have same theory of value and that's why there is speculation? I see nothing special in bitcoin, it is just one of the numerous things that the market tries to value. If the market is only speculation the value should go to zero in the long term. If there is some value in addition to speculation, the value should be non-zero - and it is left to the markets to decide, what the actual value is.

[dragonwriter]

> The difference is that speculative traders in a normal market are making bets about an actual real underlying value.

No, they are making bets about future market value. Ideas about “underlying” value are just a subset of the potential inputs to such a bet, but they are not what the bet is fundamentally on.