So to me it sounds like you do acknowledge the concept of underlying value. A house has utility, it is scarce, there is competition for it, ergo its value is a function of demand for the asset (aka a proxy for the utility of owning the asset). This can be extrapolated to other assets besides houses. Unclear if it can be to crypto, it’s sort of you believe or you don’t on that one. I think that’s what people mean when they say it has no underlying value.

TLDR scarcity + utility is where value comes from. Crypto really only has scarcity arguing for it. Much like collectibles actually.

There’s just “value”. People use the term “underlying value” as a proxy for “real value”, in opposition to “not real value”. You can verify that by looking at any example of its use in this thread.

I’m saying it’s a rhetorical crutch that doesn’t lead to meaningful discussion or insight.

If people acknowledged in these threads that “value” is way more complex and nebulous than these facile comparisons make it out to be, we’d have more interesting discussion.

I think it’s clear people are distinguishing value based purely on speculation in a scarce asset and value based on demand (and still maybe speculation) for some underlying good which has utility. Be that a house, a car, or stock of a SaaS business, a retail operation, whatever.

This is the point that crypto people are trying to avoid. "Don't talk about underlying value. It is very complex".

It reminds me of the mortgage backed securities fraud. "You cannot criticize these complex financial derivatives, they were created by MIT PhDs."

Yeah I see what darkteflon is saying but he is clearly wrong. And condescending about it to boot. There is a meaningful and discussion worthy difference between “value” (price, really), driven by speculation and hope versus price driven by demand for scarce goods which have utility.

> (price, really)

Wealth isn’t denominated in currency - price is an exchange rate to another system of faith.

Value is the length people will go to acquire an asset. Utility is only one dimension. And true utility is arguably far less important than perceived utility. Being convinced something like gold has intrinsic utility that justifies its current exchange rate is sufficient to carry the current price regardless of whether that belief is based in reality.

I’m just saying with crypto all we have is its price to go on, plus fuzzy allusions from people like you about how value is beyond the understanding of the unwashed masses.

For an otherwise useless digital token which can only be held or exchanged, its price would seem to be pretty relevant when discussing its value as it literally only has exchange value and no utility.

A huge percentage of economic activity has a strong correlation with real world utility. Food, clothing, housing, transportation, entertainment, childcare, medical care, banking services are all dependent on real utility being delivered in a short timeframe. If a top rated restaurant hired a new chef that was terrible and then failed it's health inspection and gave all of its customers food poisoning they would quickly lose perceived value.

I would agree that perceived value is more important than real value, but it is risky to place bets on there being a big difference between the two for a long time.