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Why Is Bitcoin Worth So Much?
A little over a decade ago, you could purchase a Bitcoin for less than $1. Today, it commands around $19,000 for a single Bitcoin. So why is Bitcoin worth so much, and will it continue increasing?
At the turn of the millennium, a monstrous video store named Blockbuster had the opportunity to purchase a DVD-by-mail rental service called Netflix for $50 million. Blockbuster had over 9,000 global stores at its peak and commanded an over $5 billion market cap. Twenty-three years later, Netflix is worth $128 billion, and Blockbuster is a nostalgiac relic discussed in college economics classes.
A digitally superior idea run by forward-thinking individuals, Netflix teaches us that technology and worldwide access can catapult a service's value by unforeseen amounts. We may laugh or chide the Blockbuster brass who declined the Netflix acquisition offer, but aren't most of us guilty of the same thing?
After all, most of us could have bought Bitcoin for a thousand dollars, a hundred dollars, or maybe even less. But, like the executives at Blockbuster, we ignored or never really thought about Bitcoin's value or potential. Instead, we wrote it off as a get-rich-quick scheme, a Ponzi, mythical, magical internet money created out of thin air.
So here's my interpretation of why Bitcoin is worth so much. I will break my argument into…