[jasonisalive]

If you think about what they're implying instead of just being snarky, they're really saying that bitcoin/gold/other monetary commodities have no intrinsic value beyond their a) suitability as exchange technologies and b) broad recognition as desirable.

Another way of thinking this one through would be to say, okay, gold may be desired for jewelery and electronics, but so are many other metals, so why did gold become a principal money and other metals didn't? The answer doesn't have anything to do with gold's desirability for jewelery/electronics - it has to do with gold's: good mix of abundance and scarcity, impossibility to forge, durability, friability, etc.

It's a rhetorical exercise necessary to make people understand that while Bitcoin may just be a bunch of numbers someone invented, the combined decision of humans to value it gives it its real value (facilitated of course by its suitability as an exchange technology.)