Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by nly 1833 days ago
> What exactly is the assumption that deems BTC's intrinsic value zero and land's value more than zero?

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.

3 comments

> If you owned all the Bitcoin in the world, the world wouldn't accept its use, and would just create another currency with identical properties.

Don’t all modern currencies work like this?

Yes, they do. It's literally the definition of fiat money that it has no intrinsic value.
That's a rather theoretical argument. If you were the sole owner of the world's land, then people would probably resort to kill or capture you to redistribute the land.
It's a thought experiment. Imagine you're trying to prove the relationship between your personal savings rate, and the date at which you can retire.

- 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).

Again, I think this is a rather theorerical argument.

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.

Perhaps financial independence is a better term. Retirement depends on FI, but FI doesn't necessarily mean retirement.

FI is solely determined by the amount of valuable assets you have

If one person owned all the land in the world, we also wouldn't accept it.