Money. We use it every day, fret about it, chase it, even trade our time (and sometimes our sanity) for more of it. We look at the little numbers on our phones, bank apps, or brokerage screens, and those numbers make us feel safe or panicked, rich or poor.
But here’s the crazy part: money, in any form—fiat, gold, Bitcoin, seashells, phone credits—is basically a belief system. It’s a spell we all collectively cast and agree to keep casting. Once you peel back the layers of tradition, policy, and pomp, you realize: “intrinsic value” is a myth. It’s the shared story we tell about what we think something is worth
This is why it’s odd when people say, “Bitcoin has no intrinsic value.” The truth is, no money truly does. Not dollars, not euros, not gold bars, not fancy shells used by ancient tribes. The real question is whether enough people believe something can serve as a reliable store of value or medium of exchange. That’s it.
If enough folks agree it’s valuable, it just…is. If they stop believing, it isn’t. So the argument that Bitcoin “has no value” is missing the whole point. All money is, at its core, an intangible belief—no matter how physical it might appear.
1. A Brief History of Belief in Money
Throughout history, humans have used everything from cowrie shells to large stone disks (like the Rai stones on Yap Island) to represent money. Gold rose to prominence in many societies, not because it was truly “backed” by anything but because it was rare, shiny, malleable, and easy to recognize. People liked it, and kings and merchants found it convenient to measure wealth.
Over centuries, gold gained a kind of mystical status—“intrinsic value,” people said—yet what does that really mean? It’s just an element, a metal that doesn’t corrode and looks pretty in the sun. The rest is narrative and consensus.
Fiat money, introduced on a wide scale in the 20th century, took this concept even further. For a while, many countries pegged their currency to gold, offering a sense of tangibility. Eventually, that peg was dropped.
Now, a piece of paper bearing pictures of national heroes or bridges is worth exactly what your government says it’s worth—because we, as a society, continue to accept it. If belief in that government wavers, so does belief in its currency. Just look at hyperinflationary episodes worldwide (Weimar Germany, Zimbabwe, Venezuela) to see how quickly the spell can be broken when people lose faith. You could argue we are living through it everywhere, even in the euro and dollar countries.
2. Bitcoin: The New Kid on the Block(chain)
Enter Bitcoin in 2009. Completely digital, no government backing, no shiny physical form to hold in your hand. It was greeted with skepticism, if not outright laughter. “No intrinsic value,” critics proclaimed.
Except, as we just established, money doesn’t need intrinsic value. If enough people believe in Bitcoin’s legitimacy, if they accept it in exchange for goods or services, then it’s money—plain and simple.
Sure, you can’t melt Bitcoin down to make jewelry, nor can you fold it into a paper crane. But you can transfer it across borders without a central authority stopping you. You can store it in a digital wallet. You can even memorize a seed phrase and carry your wealth in your head if you’re so inclined.
Its value arises from properties people find compelling—decentralization, scarcity (a 21-million-coin cap), censorship resistance, and the freedom to transact globally. Yes, these are intangible benefits, but so is the trust we place in any currency.
3. The “No Intrinsic Value” Argument Falls Flat
People who claim Bitcoin is worthless because it’s “not real” or “doesn’t have intrinsic value” are missing the forest for the trees. If we use “intrinsic value” as a benchmark, guess what? Your piece of paper labeled “$100” is actually worth about $0.05 in paper and ink.That’s it.
The rest is trust and policy. Even gold’s “intrinsic value” is just a combination of human aesthetics and historical momentum. If a major meteor shower dumped tons of gold onto Earth tomorrow, flooding the supply, how “intrinsic” would its value remain?
The moment you realize that all money is a shared fiction, you also realize how flimsy that old critique of Bitcoin is. Any currency, if widely adopted, can fulfill the roles of money. Bitcoin ticks the boxes (medium of exchange, unit of account, store of value) for an increasing number of people. Whether it’s bigger or smaller than fiat or gold is a matter of market adoption, not some innate property of the thing itself.
4. Oh, and Don’t Get Me Started on Gold’s “Utility”
But gold is useful for electronics or dentistry, right? Sure. But let’s be real: that’s not why gold costs what it does. It’s not like people are hoarding hundreds of gold bars in a vault so they can melt them down to fill cavities or wire circuit boards.
The “industrial use” angle is such a sliver of what drives gold’s market price that it’s almost laughable to call it intrinsic. Do people buy it hoping to use it for crowns or to gild a fancy toilet? Maybe a tiny percentage. The vast majority stockpile it because they believe in gold’s prestige and long-standing track record as a store of value. That’s it. Belief, not utility.
5. Don’t Get Tricked into a Non-Argument
When someone corners you, waving their arms about Bitcoin’s “lack of intrinsic value,” don’t fall into the trap of defending why it should have any. That’s a dead end. The best response is to remind them that neither does any other form of money. It’s moot. It’s like saying, “Your fantasy novel isn’t real because it’s made up,” when that’s exactly what all novels are. Instead, point out how currency works: it’s recognized by a community, accepted for trade, and used as a unit to measure value. That’s all it takes.
Money is a type of social contract. We can create laws around it, enforce regulations, or design cryptographic protocols to secure it. But at the end of the day, it’s still about belief. Remove belief, and even the mightiest fiat collapses. Best not to let your critics frame the argument in a way that misses this core truth.
6. The Magic Spell of Fiat
Think about how you handle money in your daily life. You probably have a bank account where a digital screen tells you how many euros or dollars you own. You might pay for groceries using a piece of plastic or tapping your phone. Very rarely do you see the physical cash, and even when you do, it’s just a fancy bit of paper. The “magic” here is that everyone else agrees this money is valid, so you can pass it along for goods and services. It’s valid, even if some entities in the world (without alchemy!) can create money.
If tomorrow, your government declared that each unit of your currency was now worth half or double, that’s how it would be, simply because the entire system reassigns the number’s meaning. Inflation, deflation, or revaluation—these shifts happen because the collective spell is being rewritten by policy, belief, or legislation. And don’t think that’s a fairy tale either, it continually happens in the world of today.
7. Bitcoin’s Spell: Decentralized Consensus
Bitcoin’s brand of magic is decentralized consensus. Instead of a central government or bank telling you what your money is worth, the Bitcoin network follows a set of rules laid down in its code. Miners, nodes, and users collectively enforce these rules, which include a maximum supply, issuance rate, and verification processes. It’s like a giant cooperative story that everyone’s agreed to participate in, and as long as people keep showing up and believing, Bitcoin continues to work as money.
No single king or government can degrade your holdings overnight by issuing more coins. No “off switch” in a central server farm can shut it down. It’s run by a global patchwork of participants, each with a stake in keeping the system alive.
That’s comforting and unnerving at the same time, because if the majority ever lost faith, it could theoretically unravel—just like any currency could if people stopped believing in it.
8. So Why the Controversy?
If all money is belief-based, why is Bitcoin singled out? Part of it is human psychology: new things make people uneasy, especially when they threaten existing power structures. Another part is that Bitcoin’s price can swing wildly, which rattles folks used to more “controlled” markets. The big banks, governments, and payment networks also have a vested interest in maintaining their dominance over how money moves.
But the “no intrinsic value” rant is still, at its core, a lazy reflex. It carries the veneer of a solid argument—“there’s nothing backing it!”—but the same holds true for every other currency in the world, gold included. They’re all “backed” by a collective story we tell each other and choose to believe.
9. The Bottom Line: Belief Makes the Magic Real
Money’s essence is collective agreement. Is Bitcoin perfect? No. Does it have risks? Yes. But to say it fails because it doesn’t contain “intrinsic value” is like complaining a fish can’t ride a bicycle. You’re missing the point entirely. Money is the magic we all do together. We can refine it, test new versions, and absolutely debate whether current forms of money serve everyone well.
But the discussion has to start by acknowledging that the “value” part was never intrinsic. It’s an emergent property of community consensus.
If you find yourself in a debate with someone who insists Bitcoin is worthless, just shrug. And ignore them if it’s online, you are not going to change anyone’s mind by an angry tweet.
If it’s someone you care about, maybe you can try to steer the conversation to more interesting waters. You can react with “Sure—and so is every other currency, if people decide it is”, opening up the conversation.
That might just crack open the door to a more intriguing discussion about how money actually works, how we might improve it, and how new technologies like Bitcoin fit into the bigger picture of trust, belief, and shared stories. Because in the end, that’s all money really is. And that’s plenty.