For starters the shiny metal does, as you acknowledge, have industrial application. Moreover, you wouldn’t be able to post that comment nor would I be posting this comment without that shiny metal in our respective devices.

Additionally the shiny metal is limited in supply, that is there is a finite amount and you nor I are going to make anymore of it. As OP suggested bitcoin is manmade, it may be artificially limited (21M coins) but anyone can just create a new blockchain and/or cryptocoin for next to nothing.

I myself learned how to create smart contracts and deploy them on the Ethereum blockchain and I have created YC Coin; Reddit Coin; Facebook Coin and Instagram Coin. For just a few fractions of an Ethereum Coin I have decentralized karma and likes across networks with billions of users combined. Separately, I have created tokens backed by real life assets allowing users to buy/sell/trade interest in actual assets on exchanges.

I’ve even begun offering coin/token creation as a service so anyone or any business who wants it’s own community cryptocoin can have one. Now I don’t question why my coins/tokens are worth less than bitcoin, but at the end of the day “why is bitcoin worth more than other coins when they are both artificially finite stores of value functioning on immutable blockchain technologies, providing the same functions” is a fair question. Once precious metals can be reproduced for next to nothing, like blockchains and cryptocoins, then it’s fair to challenge their worth until then I think it’s easy to argue their worth as a store of value.

> anyone can just create a new blockchain and/or cryptocoin for next to nothing

... and I can take my shiny metal (gold) and mould it into a replica spanish gold ingot, it doesn't mean my gold bar is worth the same as the original in fact it's worth substantially less.

By creating YC Coin, Reddit Coin or Facebook coin you're not increasing the supply of the original Bitcoin you're creating a replica of the original.

In fact, by creating the vast array of coins you have you're actually demonstrating why none of them have value, they're a dime a dozen and none of them are the original bitcoin. But a 'KarmaCoin' adopted by those websites might have substantially more value (but good luck with that!).

I don’t think creating new community cryptocoins is creating a replica of bitcoin (that’s like saying bitcoin was a replica of earlier cryptocurrencies right?). Obviously I’m not suggesting I’m creating a greater supply of bitcoin, just separate coins entirely with idenical practical functions (stores of value on blockchain traceable on exchanges). But you’ve given me an idea, I think I will create a bitcoin replica (called bitcoin, with 21 million coins) and deploy them on the Ethereum blockchain. People either forget or just don’t know bitcoin itself was given away for free to start, the first recorded purchase was a publicity stunt of 2 papa John pizzas for 10,000 bitcoin, that’s just under $60M today...I think it’s ok to ask why there is such a jump in value, when the functionality is reproducible for nearly nothing right?

As to your point, I agree any of the coins I mentioned would gain value if adopted by the websites, but that’s the beauty of decentralizing, users don’t need permission. And if there was any doubt about the underlying concept I believe Kik just launched its own community cryptocoin, creating 10 trillion and raised $100M on an ICO selling roughly 40%.

The price of the shiny metal does not match the industrial usage of it though. Why isn't a store of value considered useful in itself? Don't we gain something by moving away from trading with wampum and sheep?

I’m not sure it’s fair to conclude the price doesn’t match its industrial usage, just based on being an integral component of computers and smart phones, using another electrical conductor while possible would lead to reduced lifetimes of devices...so what is the fair value of something that in other words extends the lifetimes of these devices?

Also, I’d be the first person to acknowledge and promote the function of bitcoin and blockchain technologies too, but I think it’s ok to support bitcoin/blockchain while simultaneously questioning how the monetary value of bitcoin is derived and drawing a distinction between value/worth/function of precious metals and cryptocurrencies. It’s like smart contracts, I’m the first to support and promote self executing programs hosted on blockchains, but I’m also the first to challenge when people market them as functioning outside the legal system or in other ways inconsistent with reality.

I say if you can, own a little of all of them, sheep too. After all gold is only worth something until it’s worth less than a can of soup.

Price can be based both on utility and speculation, so shiny metals may have higher prices than their industrial usage would imply. It doesn’t have to be just one or the other.

A store of value is, of course, useful, but that doesn’t mean that it should gain a high price. Is there a shortage of value storage, or are there already plenty of ways to store value?

Doesn't bitcoin match that definition? It is not only a store of value but also provides forms of utility that wasn't there before distributed consensus was solved.

It doesn't store value, it's a network protocol and a database.

It's not rare, and the supply was minted for substantially minimal energy/capital input. Satoshi designed an economic model for Bitcoin to reward himself and the small pool of users who ran the software. Anyone buying a Bitcoin for more than it cost to produce it in 2009-2014 is hoping they'll find a greater fool to sell their coin to.

Is litecoin a store of value? Monero a store of value too? Maybe 42 coin is more valuable because there's only 42 instead of "21 million"... oops the network forked and now there's twice... wait four times... wait the network forked again... oh dear.

Are you saying a database doesn't have value? For many companies, their database is their largest asset.

> It doesn't store value, it's a network protocol and a database. It's not rare, and the supply was minted for substantially minimal energy/capital input.

I don't agree with any of that.

I suppose the internet is really just a bunch of 1s and 0s and not of any value either using that reasoning.

Because the government buys stuff with them and you can pay your taxes with them.

you need it to pay taxes.

No, you don't need yellow pieces of rock to pay your taxes.

Gold is quite a good comparison to bitcoin. Gold has very little "intrinsic" value and isn't backed up by the government.