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A comment on Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creating value?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creatin... by DennisP on Saturday November 06, 2021 @10:33PM (#29136017)
The question was why the price of crypto is rising so fast. The answer, at least for Ethereum, is that it provides a service that some people value enough to pay for. The fact that philosopher1234 doesn't value those services just means it's very slightly less valuable than it otherwise would be.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creatin... by philosopher1234 on Saturday November 06, 2021 @10:37PM (#29136035)
“People will pay money for it” is not a useful definition of value. People pay money for assassination or vengeance and many extremely destructive things. What use is there in labeling these things as valuable?
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Re:Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creatin... by DennisP on Sunday November 07, 2021 @07:49AM (#29139016)
In economics, value is purely subjective. If someone is willing to pay for it, then it has value to that person. To answer OP's simple question of why crypto has a high price, the economic definition is what you need.

You're looking at a more absolute definition of value that has little to do with the price of things. That's a worthwhile discussion as well but has little to do with OP's question.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creatin... by JohnFen on Sunday November 07, 2021 @09:10AM (#29139552)
> If someone is willing to pay for it, then it has value to that person.

My problem with that definition is that it's a tautology, and therefore holds little actual meaning and provides no insight.

"Why is that valuable?" is not a question meaningfully answered by "because people want it". That answer only begs the question. Everything that has value to people only has value because people want it.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creatin... by DennisP on Sunday November 07, 2021 @12:02PM (#29141193)
Ok then skip the word "value" entirely. People are willing to pay a lot for ETH, because they're willing to pay to issue transactions on the network and that increases the price of the network's currency.

That's not a tautology because it's two different things. If they were only paying for the currency, that could be just a speculative bubble. If the price is based on people paying to issue transactions, that's a price built on actual use.

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