Misconceptions of Value
For over a decade, bitcoin’s price, as well as the viability and merit of the Bitcoin network itself, has been derided by classical economists as a fiction. Criticisms of bitcoin range from purely speculative investment to outright fraud. There is a common yet misinformed belief, even among ardent supporters and holders of bitcoin, that the true value of bitcoin is at best unknown and at worst not knowable or zero. No modern currency, not even sovereign fiat currency, has intrinsic or fundamental value. Every currency in widespread use today is representative money. Commodity money has other characteristics that impart value, namely scarcity and durability, that paper money does not. However, lack of intrinsic value is not the same as having no value.
From the Federal Reserve of the United States:
“What is the source of the fundamental value of Bitcoin? Think about it this way. At its core, Bitcoin is a database management system. Database management systems can have a fundamental value if they are tailored to meet the needs of a given constituency. Bitcoin offers people a money storage and transfer system with two key properties: (i) permission-less access and (ii) decentralized database management. The first property means that no one can prevent a user from sending any amount of Bitcoin from one account to another. The second property means that the protocol does not depend on the existence of a delegated authority to manage accounts and transfer funds. The fundamental demand for Bitcoin derives from the fact that there are at least some people who value these features. This fundamental demand provides a non-zero lower bound on the price of Bitcoin.”
Demand Through Adoption, Supply Created by Miners
Those of you have heard me discuss Bitcoin’s fundamental value know my theory of “demand through adoption, supply through miners”, and there are several ways to theorize this – but the most significant and conclusive way to visualize this theory is to look at the correlation between transactions and returns. This is the concept that the NVT signal used in Laissez Faire is based on.
There is a strong correlation between the transaction count on the Bitcoin blockchain and its % returns in value.
Sourcing data from https://www.blockchain.com/en/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all
That is what organic growth and adoption looks like.
Big thanks to everyone who believed in this and helped it get started! The gun was fired and we’ve been off to the races since.
Reminder that Laissez Faire will be open for withdrawals starting 5/6-5/11. I will try and integrate this into the website eventually, but for now just contact me directly!
Hope you are all having a good weekend.