Cryptocurrencies, Blockchain and Value
The most common misconception in the cryptocurrency space is that it all boils down to market value. Back in 2000 with the dot-com bubble burst, a lot of people lost faith in the internet and thought it was a dying technology just because most internet companies failed. There are a lot of similarities between the internet and the crypto space today, the main one being that their true value lies in the technology itself, not the market value which was mostly designated through speculation.
So, sit back and enjoy an article about cryptocurrency and blockchain that does not promise to make you rich, but will attempt to explain this ever so fluid and abstract notion called value.
Types of value
The first thing we need to understand about value is that it's a human concept and with any such concept it’s dependent on context. There are two main types of value: an inherent value that relates to the qualities of the good or service and a market value that relates to a monetary price upon exchange.
Inherent value refers to what goods or services can do for us. This is evaluated before or during use and has a very utilitarian and personal nature. Because people are different and have particular needs, goods and services will be perceived differently and thus valued differently. Things that save us time, energy or money tend to be seen as quite valuable, the same holds true for things that help us relax, increase our self-esteem or social status, which are a little more abstract. We tend to see these things as being more valuable based on how good a job they do in meeting our needs and because needs change based on context, so does value.
Market value is relevant upon exchange and has to do with the inherent qualities of a good or service plus market forces like supply and demand, brand or competition. On the free market, the price of goods or services is mainly determined by supply and demand which is based upon the availability or scarcity of a thing and how many people are willing to purchase it. However, we need to be realistic and factor in more than supply and demand in the equation. Advertising is playing a large role in influencing the perceived value of things, people are inclined to pay more for brands. On the other hand, a brand is inclined to drop their prices if they have competition. So, price is a dynamic value given to goods or services and is dependant on a context broader than just supply and demand.
More simply put, market value is what people are prepared to pay for a good or service and inherent value is what the good or service does for you after. Like when you buy a chair, the reason you keep it around us that you can sit on it. And this functionality is the real value of the chair, not the 50$ you paid for it.
Speculative trading is the only use case in which the is no difference between the two types of value. And because most people buy cryptocurrencies just for making a profit, it’s easy to understand why the general public believes that market price is the central aspect of this technology. So, in an attempt to even the playing field, the efforts of this article will go into the direction of explaining the inherent value of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
Cryptocurrencies, blockchain and the world
As we saw in the first part of this article, inherent value is only relevant in the context of human activity and needs. Different aspects of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology relate to different aspects of human activity. The following examples will attempt to contextualize these aspects and provide instances in which real value is created.
The global nature of both cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology creates value by bringing people together in an inclusive and participatory by choice way. There are two billion people in the world which do not have access to banking infrastructure, there are several countries that are under international sanctions and a few that are closed off to international trade by choice. Most of these are due to either outside influence, government failure or authoritarian regimes and the people that live in these conditions have no blame to bear. In these contexts, cryptocurrencies offer a way for ordinary people to participate in the global economy. People can send and receive money almost instantly in a cost efficient way and through ICO’s they can even become international investors.
Through the tamper proof structure of blockchains, fraud can be mitigated. Economic and social sectors that are highly dependent on trusted third parties have a lot to gain by implementing blockchain technology. In this way, the degree of trust can be raised while the costs are lowered and sectors as supply chain management and voting can be upgraded. The use of blockchain oracles that track the production, shipping and sales of goods can create a clear and traceable path in which people have more information regarding the quality and the expiry of food, for example. While on the social side, blockchain technology is the first feasible infrastructure on which digital direct democracy can be built. The possibility of bring the democratic process to a smartphone in a secure and efficient way can create real social value.
The censorship resistant architecture of blockchains can be used to guarantee that once a deal is made, neither side can opt out and cheat the rules. The advent of blockchain based smart contracts, which are basically any agreement that can be mathematically defined, created a new paradigm of trust between individuals. We not have the capacity of creating mutually beneficial systems that are above the control of any individual or organization, while facilitating the guarantee of fairness in many aspects of human economic interactions.
A very important and unexplored aspect of cryptocurrencies is the possibility to incentivize different behaviors. Bitcoin distributes all the newly created coins to the miners, but steem uses 75% of the new tokens to fund a reward pool for quality content creators. This principle of distributing tokens to people that meet certain expectations or complete various tasks can be used to financially reward desired behaviors. For example, excellent academic performance can be rewarded with a token that is automatically distributed to students that meet the criteria. Or a local administration that rewards prosocial behaviour with tokens that can be used to get a discount on taxation or premium parking spots.
These are just a few of the ways cryptocurrencies and blockchains can be used to better human activity. This is just the beginning and the great news is that the majority of these technologies are open source and this is a major driver of innovation because everyone is able to participate and improve.
Conclusion
There are a lot of ways in which value can be created. Apart from monetary value, a whole world of possibilities has been opened for exploration through the global, tamper proof, censorship resistant and behaviour incentivizing nature of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
We now have new tools to build a future in which value can be derived from trust, immutability and inclusion. And for those that are only interested in the monetary gains associated to cryptocurrencies, the more we created functional products that have these features, the more monetary value will be associated with them. So, the best long term investment is in the development of these technologies.
Great read, clear and concise! I've personally found inherent value by participating here on #steemit platform blogging/sharing. I literally had a dream, woke up plane as day hearing in my voice, buy a lite coin! I didn't even know what that was, I went down the rabbit hole in Fall of 2017 and watched every youtube, website info channel, history cyber phunks documentary you name it. Decided to buy into bitcoin and some others and see if I could actually use it. Day trading etc. wasn't for me, but then I found Steemit and converted bitcoin etc. The challenge of creating content, a blog, photo editing etc. has changed my life and within that has certain hidden value that I cherish, especially the "discord" platforms. These are crucial in my opinion keeping this platform robust/healthy. I still have a lot to learn, working on the camera stuffs and how to use all these new apps associated and built on top of that inherent community value.. I love the real value cyrpto has brought to the impoverished nations and that they may thrive and overcome dictatorships/oppression etc.
May crypto currencies bring forth THE GOLDEN AGE!!!! IT"S A DONE DEAL!!!!! (Where the playing game of value of any commodity isn't quite as rigged.)
This is also the value that the steem blockchain brought into my life. All the content I created here helped me manage my thoughts and gave me a community context in which to unfold.
Do you have any cypherpunk documentary to recommend? I think I only watched the discussion on the Julian Assange show.
okay, I'm looking all over for it, there's random stuffs, it might take me a minute, they might have pulled it, watched it 2 years ago... thought it was a frontline thang on history of bitcoin and then they went into detailed origin stories of Assange and the phunks.. his series stuff is prolly the best anyway.. mmmmm get back atcha if I find it.
Okay I think it was this
Thank you for the link. I hope I have time soon to watch :)
Dear @lishu and @everyone else
Indeed I've noticed that most people seem to focus on monitoring market cap which I found very surprising. It doesnt take a rocket sience to realize that market cap means very little.
It's surely great way to encourage people to invest in project. Doesn't it sound great when we hear "this project is worth 2mln usd"? It surely does.
You nailed it buddy.
VALUE AND TRUST
They you explained what "value" means and how we should consider it is brilliant. I found it interesting how different people see this particular topic. I realized that most people who work 9am-5pm jobs and are being paid fixed rate (money) have serious difficulties understanding this topic.
I would like to ask everyone reading my comment, how would you explain what "value" is to "regular Joe". To your mother, brother or simply a friend, who doesn't know much about blockchain and is stuck with a regular way of thinking (money = the only store of value they know).How to explain what store of value is and that value can be exchanged / traded. I realized that I've some serious difficulty explaining it.
Cheers
Piotr
I can agree with the stance @hobo.media takes about some 'intrinsic value' to be derived from the survival utility of a substance or condition.
I might go a step further to say that other things can have a sort of 'extrinsic value' insomuch that they can be exchanged for things of intrinsic value. While I cannot eat a Bitcoin, I could exchange it for a lot of pizzas and so realize it's value in this sense.
I could also put it another way. Value is a measure of how much one wants something. Things of intrinsic value necessarily generate a basic level of want. Biology demands water for it's processes and so we want to drink. This want-value I think is a bit more general and can be applied to things like speculative assets and luxury items as well as utility items like computers or necessities like nutrition.
Hi Piotr, you are totally right. I just wrote something similar in my native language to the Czech community, that the value we have in Steemit and Bitcoin is great. We are a very lucky generation in my eyes!
Indeed we are @ritxi :) thx for your comment
I don't think price volatility really effects bitcoin's use as a store of value. Store value is definitely a long term perspective. It certainly affects bitcoin's use, added as a medium of exchange. But as a store of value... you know if you are buying and investing in Bitcoin and using it as a store value then you have a long term perspective. Certainly more than a year. Volatility really is an expression of size.
I think there's a broad misunderstanding about how volatility is dealt with in capital markets and currency markets. The idea that regulators control volatility in a currency I think is an illusion.
Regulation doesn't control volatility. If anything, regulated markets that don't have enough flexibility and liquidity are more volatile. I would say the biggest contributor to volatility is the small size of a currency.
And you've got to understand that bitcoin is currently traded on a global basis unlike most other national currencies that have primarily domestic markets. And it's market cap is smaller than some national currencies. But bitcoin will become less volatile as it grows.
Bitcoin is what internet was in 1993. People were not so familiar with it, only minority was using it. And through the years, it became a part of our everyday life.
Value of bitcoin is enormous. It is already changing the way we trade , how fast and how secure we can do things online, how we do not need any third party while two or more people are making an exchange, full decentralisation.
I could write whole day about this. About all the technology that is behind bitcoin, when it all started....but I guess that's a bit too much for usual Joe ;)
I think one needs to make distinction between price and value. Price is the short term fluctuations of a crypto currency, while value refers to the long term benefits and positive impact of a cryptpcurrency on the lives of users and investors.
Dear Piotr, till this blockchain is connected with just cryptos it will be not understand by "regular Joe".
Only who have some knowelage about crypto can understand, for others this is a hidden world where only liers and bad people play, unfortunately in most of country people think that Bitcoin is the black money....
Thanks @crypto.poitr
For me value and trust are very separate entity. Let suppose, value of my high end watch is $1500 but I am trusting my $100 mobile more when I have to check/report the time.
It is difficult to sustain the value without trust but if their is trust then value can be generated.
Most of the people who entered this field did not enter it because of the development of knowledge or the exchange of ideas (I was also at the beginning) but the goal was to make money and develop daily income. The physical obstacles experienced by the world's population push them to search for other means of profit and the field of the Internet is a wide area and may be possible if the person choose the profitable field.
Greetings
Love your comment @nabil.nassiri
Thx for dropping by buddy
Piotr
I think that human perceives things as being valuable if they save money, time, energy; or if they create self-esteem, relaxation or happiness. These are all things of great value to us and I would try to explain this by asking people what they value the most.
Hello crypto.piotr, here again.
The subject of Value is complicated and I usually explain it by making a monetary comparison, above all because many people associate value with money alone.
Value really is what you are willing to give for something in particular. The value of a particular thing can be different for each person. There are those who value their mother more than their children and there are those who value their children more than their mother (my particular case), so Value is what we are willing to give to have that thing we want. Another example would be an auction, suppose that Elvis Presley's guitar is being auctioned, the auction starts with a value of 30,000 USD, then some offers 35,000 USD, another person offers 40,000 USD and a third person finishes offering 60,000 USD. What's happening? That the 3rd person valued Elvis Presley's guitar more than the other two people did. For this person the symbolic and sentimental value was greater than the one that the other two person gave to the guitar. Maybe this person is a collector who values these things very much and will allow you to have very good conversations about this guitar (surely this person gives a lot of value to personal relationships) and for that reason he was willing to pay the price, he considered that the $ 60,000 worth it. I could have a lot of millions but the value that I would give to that guitar would not exceed 3,000 USD.
Love your comment @luiscalzadilla
Thx for dropping by buddy
Piotr
Dear @crypto.piotr
I believe that value depends on a lot of things like:
Perception
What does a person consider as valuable. For me, I consider bitcoin, steem and other cryptocurrency as valuable in addition to fiat currencies, precious metals and other tradeable stocks.
Situation
Assigning value to an object depends sometimes in a person's condition or situation. If a person is in a desert, he will surely value water over gold, silver or any other things- as its more essential to his survival.
Knowledge/Education
Well, for most of the people and, I am living now in Australia, they still do not know the difference between bitcoin and ethereum here. So basically, one's knowledge of what is valuable depends also on his education and accessed information.
Opportunity
A lot of guys in the stock market are very much familiar with this and well, in lay man's term, asking simply yourself- what is more valuable now- gold, silver, fiat or cryptocurrency. Well, that depends on what the chart in the stock market are saying, right?
To sum it up, if you wanted to convince anyone on considering anything valuable, you get to profile them first so you can determine the most appropriate method to get them on your side.
Thank you for yours amazing comment @nurseanne84
Very wise summary. Appreciate. As always.
Yours
Piotr
Excellent comment @mykos
Hi @nurseanne84,
"If a person is in a desert, he will surely value water over gold, silver or any other things- as its more essential to his survival."
Simply awesome...... 100℅ truth!
Very apt comment. Perfectly written. Nothing more, nothing less.
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Market cap is not that important, I agree on that. While Bitcoin went to all time highs in January 2018, it was actually Ethereum that caused it to go to that price of 20k. This is because of the ICO bubble, it inflated the value of the entire market.
As for a store of value, well, I do subscribe to the thinking many people have that there is no such thing as intrinsic value. So, a store of value, in many respects, is merely an imagined value within the mind of the person storing it.
I do believe in intrinsic value, but the only things that truly have intrinsic value are the things that we need for actual survival. Although water is not highly valued in a city, but greatly valued in a desert, it does have a base intrinsic value. We need clean, drinkable water, regardless where we are.
Gold and cryptocurrencies are not things that can have intrinsic value, because they are not essential to our physical survival in any direct sense. However, they do have a subjective value in the same way baseball cards have a subjective value. As long as someone is likely to care about the item, it can become a store of value.
Bitcoin is actually terrible gold. Everything gold is good at Bitcoin is terrible at, but Bitcoin has one special use that gold is terrible at: teleportation.
Bitcoin can teleport from my wallet to yours in 10 minutes. It doesn't matter where you are, I can send you money you may need. This is valuable in many situations, and for this reason, there is likely going to remain someone interested in dealing with you in cryptocurrency for years to come.
Excellent comment @hobo.media
Teleportation? :) I never heard that before :)
Yours
Piotr
Dear Piotr Sir,
Be it a product or commodity, it's value depends on the impact it makes in the minds of the people and Supply & demand follow suit!
For example, here in India, our people prefer investing in Gold rather than any other thing. The value that precious medal earned in their minds is due to it's glorious past history which is without any disputes.
I was telling people that it is okay with them to invest in Gold, but told them to make it (Gold: Bitcoin-70:30) and asked them to check how Bitcoin performs superiorly with block chain technology, how secure and transparent each and every transaction will be and the like.
Regards,
Srinivasant
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haha, i have been reading some comments and i found each of them quite amazing. Anyway this is my little tip on the topic of value. Value comes from the users of a commodity and it's worth is determined by the people. But sometimes you would need a product to back your value you know and that is where all these blockchain solutions that are coming up are trying to develop an ecosystem which is going to drive the liquidity of their cryptocurrencies to keep the value and sustain it. Hope this helps :)
Kelvin writes @Ikkelins
Like absolutely anything else, the value of it, in terms of that garbage called Fiat, is purely down to people placing faith in it, Fiat proves that you can sell a lie based on trust alone, that a bit of useless paper (Fiat currency) is worth exchanging for a house, car or helicopter, insane is it not?
The problem with crypto currencies at the moment, not blockchain, more the byproduct that is crypto keys known as the currency (BTC, steem, or any other) are so difficult to exchange for goods and or services, even with credit style cards like advanced cash card, you get charged money for using the card, to get it to the card costs you a percent from the exchange you sent it from, say for instance I send steem as I did last night, to bittrex, I then change the steem to BTC losing a percent, then I had to send the BTC to coinbase, sell it for Euro losing another percent, then send that to my bank, losing a charge in Euros, and by the time it hit my bank today, the bank took a percent.
We need to clean up all the loose ends in the blockchain/crypto space, way too many "middle men" and that is why the masses will not as yet, adopt it.
And that is without mentioning "having" to register with your id on all the sites in between, then having to wait up to 1 hour for 6 confirmations from BTC transfers, it is all so long winded and time consuming, as it is now.
Excellent comment @shepz1
Are you still in Poland? I just moved here lately and I would be happy to "connect" with you one day :)
Yours
Piotr
Yes, 30 km from Lublin, we have a farm. :-)
Take some photos :)
Perhaps I can visit you once during summer time @shepz1 :)
Yours
Piotr
I agree, the steps we need to go through in order to use the value created by cryptocurrencies in the real world is quite draining at the moment. I think that at my last transaction from steem to fiat I lost more than 10% of the value.
Another major problem that crypto faces in being used in the economy is price volatility. One of the first tokens that will see mass adoption, I believe, will be a stable coin that does its job properly without being backed up in FIAT. Most probably google or facebook will be able to create such a token and give it a constant value by saying they will accept it for services at parity with the USD, for example.
Hey there @lishu and @crypto.piotr coincidentally I just read an article on values and value recently on a website. I have also written on value before because I come from a background of relatively little financial facility here in Africa and also because I am a consciousness explorer who sees value in the transcendent.
I have never needed money to feel wealthy. wealth or value is a state of consciousness, which is different from being rich in financial terms. One can have a valuable life if it is filled with heightened consciousness and self-realization, that is the true goal of life and the actual value of this human form of life. Unfortunately we have been deliberately educated away from this focus by central bankers and the politicians that they control via fiat currency. The system is brainwashing us to have the wrong values altogether. Gone are even common decent human values, like respect for all life, respect for humanity, the earth - a valuable planet which we seem to be exploiting excessively due to the corrupt capitalist system. What we have today is not real capitalism. It is a terminal system where profit and expansion is seen as a symptom of value, but the hidden expenses are not factored in, like the damage to the ecosystem, damage to humanity via disease from toxic products, etc in the name of profit. So values are distorted today.
As you say, even in crypto, we are in it to make money from trading and price bull runs. I only learned about the technology and its value after I took more time to investigate, but first it was a get rich quick enticement. So I also fall victim to the allure of perceived value in fiat terms, while the underlying value of the blockchain tech and the project run on the blockchain came later. Now I see that some projects that launch ICOs have a value because they solve a real world problem.
But the real value is in self-realization, which is free. All the books are there - the Vedas of India for example. All the techniques are free to try, All it takes is an investment of the most valuable commodity we have - time. This human form of life is more valuable than we have been led to believe today by our shallow leaders. It is priceless.
Love your comment @julianhorack
Thx for dropping by buddy
Piotr
The first part of your comment made me remember a video presentation done by Peter Joseph, the founder of the Zeitgeist Movement. If you don't know about this paradigm-shifting activism, I really recommend it:
I also tend to agree with you on the self-realisation part, the real value relates to what type of alchemy happens within us and how we can shift our perception from limiting ourselfs to unfolding ourselves
Thanks for a very detailed explanation of the blockchain and some future uses.
For me the blockchain and Crypto currancy is important because it has the potential to give the power back to the individual and prevent governments from squandering our money. I look forward to the day when they have to present a new project, building infrastructure etc. To the people for aproval and funding. When we have the choice as to what we invest in, then democracy will be a real thing.
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I hope you are not holding your breath.
Oh no I have faith in Abraham 😁
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One of the things related to blockchain that gets me really excited is its role in facilitating digital direct democracy. Its the first time in human history that we have the real infrastructure needed to create such a wonderful thing and it can be done directly on a smartphone. The first major step in this direction is to embrace digital identity and I hope we have a viable blockchain solution as soon as possible.
How do you see this transfer of power back to the people ocuring?
Obviously a difficult question to answer. So I will say this.
I beleive the days of fiat currency are numbered. The signes are begining to apear.
I liken it to a game of Monopoly where in the end all the money ends up in the same place and that person wins. But do they.
There are more Billionairs being created everyday but it is still a very small percentage of people. When you realize that most if not all countries owe Billions or Trillions of fiat. To whom we don't know. These Billionairs have more and more control over the world. nd of course whilst this is happening down at the other end more and more people are driven into poverty. Lets use Italy, Greece, France and of course Venezuela where the people are starting to rise up against their respective Governments.
When people start to see Crypto as a viable alternative to the paper in their pockets or indeed the digits on their plastic card. Then things will change. Here on steemit we have the chance to bring that to a reality. The people at the top will eventually realize that looking after the people at the bottom will actually make the steem blockchain stronger, therefore sharing wealth will be a positive thing to do. Greed won't make you wealthy. But helping others will. The whole structure of how money is used in this world will change.
We have that chance right now lets make it work. For the many not just the few. 😎
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One of the major flaws of FIAT is that it promotes accumulation. I believe there should be a incentive in the structure of money that promotes circulation, so that people with a lot of money create value for others instead of hording billions of dollars.
I see a lot of potential in steem, but it has a major incentive for hording SP to increase the vote power. So, even a well intended whale will need to increase its wealth in ordert to better help minnows. I am not sure where this will go, but I really hope that you are right :)
Thank you @lishu for this excellent article (and thank you @crypto.piotr for bringing it to my attention). Ten years after the introduction of Bitcoin we start to see the multi-dimensional implications that censorship-resistant distributed ledgers may (I personally think will) have on our global society. The multitude of altcoins focus on different aspects and their underlying rules represent the values that are shared by its hodlers. Some of the coins are clearly ideological and are trying to cistalize dreams and visions into reality. IMHO Bitcoin has its unique role in dragging massive wealth into the space (I am thinking trillions of $) which is thus made available for humanitarian and sociological innovation pioneered by alts. Bitcoin is the cold hard cash (as outline in the book The Bitcoin Standard) that is increasingly harder to avoid by asset managers.
Dear @mariusfebruary
I'm glad you accepted my invitation and big thx for sharing your opinion on that particular issue. I noticed that you even resteemed this post :)
Enjoy your weekend buddy
Yours, Piotr
Thank you for the kind words :)
This is a very interesting perspective, and one that I failed to see, that the value created by bitcoin bleeds through the market into altcoin innovation. And you are 100% correct because most of them are funded through bitcoin and ether. What a very interesting mechanism, I will give this one some thought.
I think the real transformation and massive impact on our global society will happen when we have an oracle revolution and blockchains start interacting with the outside world in a trusted and secure way.
There are so many undervalued currencies, I wouldn't use the market cap to market it. But however it would be a great addition! I would just explain the problem and solution the blockchain application solves, to my mother or the average joe!
And how would you present the problems and solution so that anyone can understand them? I found this to be quite difficult because a lot of context seems to be missing.
Very good post material to introduce to people that are not that cosy with the intrinsics of blockchain financials. I might refer to your work later if I need into the @lovesteemaccount.
Thanks and cheers
Glad to be of help, you can refer anything you need!
Essentially, blockchain brings trust as a service. In the various aspects of the world, it is so difficult to build trust. There is a constant need to have check and balances. There is a need for audits. There are multiple layers of approvals and checks to prevent fraud. Blockchain and smart contracts are here to simplify things. And I think that's the inherent value we are talking about
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Love your comment @culgin
Thx for dropping by buddy
Piotr
Yep, you nailed it, configurable, on demand, participatory by choice, global trust is the new game.
I believe I lack even the most fundamental knowledge about checks and balances and I agree that this is a very important aspect of what blockchain can facilitate. Do you have any recommendations where to research this a bit, preferably video because my brain processes it better in this format :)
Yes I see it as well, there is an intrinsic value and a monetary value. The intrinsic value is different for each human, but the intrinsic value (s) of these cryptocurrencies are, for me, independence, decentralization, freedom, and the right technology.
And I am not an expert concerning the technology behind these currencies...
Then there is just the monetary value, this everyone already knows, no matter which crypto currency, if this value increases, also increases the monetary value.
In this sense, in the long run, the intrinsic value or inner values I listed above are certainly more important than the monetary value!
I believe the two types of value will go hand in hand at one point. I think the market needs another meltdown in which we will separate the tokens that bring real value and the ones that are copies of just marketing. After such a crash, the remaining coins will better reflect the inherent value in the monetary one.