Every once in a while I'll hear someone say that bitcoin is a tulip mania that is bound to pop and go down to zero because it's not "backed by anything" or it has "no intrinsic value". Of course when you point out that the dollar isn't backed by gold any more, then they say that it's backed by the US military. If that's the case, then bitcoin is backed by the internet itself.
Aside from the fact that the idea of intrinsic value comes from Aristotle's works on Ethics and that most people have no idea what that is when they say it... anyone notice a resemblance between diagrams of the IOT (Internet of Things) and a neural network in the human brain?
(Google Images - Wikimedia Commons)
(Google Images - Wikimedia Commons)
How about between sub-atomic structure and solar systems throughout the universe?
(Google Images - Wikimedia Commons)
(Google Images - Wikimedia Commons)
In both cases one is able to mirror the other, so which one holds the real value? How can you tell the difference between which one is real and which one isn't?
Well, your so called tangible asset called "gold" is also an IT construct. It's 99.999999999994% empty space at the subatomic level with electrons in orbitals that function as a 0 or 1 (binary) boolean operators that switch on or off various properties of the periodic table of elements with XOR (exclusive OR in computer science) between protons, neutrons and electrons that have the functions of (+), (+/-) and (-).
I submit to you that "gold" is in essence a computer program written by the almighty and recorded in the blockchain called "space" with encumbrances called "molecules". How is it then more real than bitcoin?