[knorker]

> Bitcoin has value for the same reason Visa has value.

No. Visa has contracts, offices, and cash. They have over $81B in assets, over $12B of which is cold hard cash.[1]

Visa also has employees who know what they're doing. Bitcoin has cryptocurrency industry people working on its behalf. It's not the same thing.

Bitcoin has people and companies invested in it (emotionally and financially). Visa has almost a hundred billion dollars in assets, and the market believes they'll be able to make even more (hence the almost $400B market cap).

Visa's market cap is just 4-5x its current assets.[2]

Bitcoin has no assets. It's just speculation. It can't be liquidated even in theory.

[1] https://s1.q4cdn.com/050606653/files/doc_financials/2022/q2/...

[2] ok, so it also has liabilities. But my point stands. Visa has value in a way that Bitcoin doesn't.

[datadata]

> Bitcoin has no assets.

Cash just as well "has no assets". You can't just compare bitcoin to a corporation and get something that makes sense.

[knorker]

Two things:

> You can't just compare bitcoin to a corporation and get something that makes sense.

1) I agree. I was replying to a comment that did.

> Cash just as well "has no assets".

2) USD is backed, ultimately, by the full force of the nuclear armed state and multiple branches of the biggest military the world has ever seen. If you think the US government will allow USD to become irrelevant then you are going to be very disappointed. Bitcoin has no such thing.

[forum_ghost]

Russia has a nuclear armed military also. Strong enough to deter the US from direct confrontation.

Yet, somehow they have never been a prime destination for investment.

Economy matters as well. And loss of faith in the USD cannot be fixed with a few mushroom clouds.

[knorker]

I know. And the USD is not just backed by the military. War is just diplomacy failed.

It's just the most obvious backing.

It's enough to send fines, most of the time. Actually just the threat of fines. If foreign then diplomatic carrots and sticks.

I'm commenting on the absurd notion that the USD is backed by nothing, commonly said with "but BTC is backed by math".

You're right. Mushroom clouds won't help the USD. But the implication of it helps.

Actual acts the US does are more subdued. Overthrow democracies and invade smaller countries.

But could the US do it if it had no nukes and a military the size of Mexico's?

The US even buys support, including keeping USD the medium of exchange (thus creating USD demand, thus giving USD value) including be providing military guarantees.

Russia and China have great militaries too, but the US is a league of its own in its ability to apply it anywhere on the globe.

Russia does not.

The reason the US (and USD) has been winning is, as I'm sure you'd agree, a complex and huge topic full of not just strategy but also history. But it doesn't change the fact that without the US military and its ability to project it worldwide it would be MUCH weaker.

Russia lost 50 million people in the war, at a time when the US was sitting as pretty the only major country not blown to bits, and it was holding the IOUs.

[datadata]

No one said that USD is going anywhere. As you pointed out for bitcoin, the people who work on or invest in bitcoin are not part of the asset. This is the same for USD also. Visa equity is the most different amongst the three.

[knorker]

Like I said, I was not the one starting the comparison.