Medium of exchange, unit of account, store of value.
There is a basic function of money which makes Bitcoin valuable - medium of exchange. People are willing to exchange bitcoin because they believe it transfers value. It is unquestionable to disagree that buying cryptocurrency cannot be considered an investment - and quite rightly gambling. I completely agree.
Let us posit an obvious example as to why cryptocurrency has intrinsic value. Many websites offer tokens, units of credits. The most obvious is tokens which amount to number of contacts you can make with somebody. It could be dating websites or professional services. You register, pay a fee and get a number of contacts. To everybody else not using these sites, the tokens are almost worthless but if a company cancelled the tokens the customer could probably and quite rightly sue. Cryptocurrency, being decentralised in nature, can be distributed outside of control of one entity meaning it is not the same as a token.
Again, I do get it. The government has no control over how many cryptocurrencies gets created, I could create my own blockchain and deem it to be of value, take in cash and then cancel the blochain confident the government will not go after me? Surely it would be fraudulent?
Can we imagine a UK government deciding to block an American company accepting cash? No chance. If America does this, of course we will follow suit.
Ears on the ground
Many will know I was a strong Remainer. The reasons for remaining were;
- The harmonising nature of UK versus European Law - keeping the UK in check from totalitarian government.
- Freedom of movement within the EU - a great principle. This should not get confused with immigration from outside the EU.
- Generally a better progression towards common understanding.
Never underestimate the efforts of the few over the many. The EU was becoming totalitarian in nature. For this reason, Brexit must happen but then, quickly, the nature of the UK's democracy needs to radically alter. It is unacceptable we find this serf like state still exists in our times. We should be genuinely concerned with the idea of a UK government having control over us - Labour or Conservative.
So I look at these types of stories about something being banned as disturbing and a sign of things to come. Think about it, what is the one true use of cryptocurrency has whilst negotiating trade deals has - foreign exchange? Bitcoin and many cryptocurrencies are borderless and permissionless. Yet these old hacks want to ban it.
It is only to do with relinquishing control. I don't understand why a small subset of people want to spend their time getting upset over a bunch of people they don't know or will never meet and seek to convince a bunch of other people those people need controlling and that this subset of people are the ones to do the controlling?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRGEmm6IRNI
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2019/08/01/bitcoin-has-no-intrinsic-value-as-uk-moves-towards-crypto-ban/#4aa377692d27