Rolex $42k - BTC 23k?

The other day I was walking past a watch shop

I haven't been in one for probably several decades since watches have no value for me. Sure, today there are the smart watches that actually have a lot more functionality and could be considered to be a mini smart phone. But even that just isn't for me as I find the weight on my wrist burdensome and just unnecessary as I got my smart phone anyway.

So there is this Rolex sitting there for $42,000. That's a big sum of money I would say for a watch. The kind of watch that tells you the time of the day and the day of the month. Wow! That is quite a technical marvel really. So for 42 grand I can buy a round thing that tells me the time. Fantastic!

Now, I am not naive. People who buy this watch are not buying it for its designed function. They are buying it for prestige and as a passport so to speak to get into the places where rich people go where you can make all sorts of (financial) connections. That's the real purpose of this thing. But the irony is that 99% of the time when wearing this watch you'll probably be the only one knowing that you are carrying $42 grand with you on your wrist. It's not like a fancy car that is obvious when you drive it. No, an untrained eye couldn't even spot it as a Rolex.

Where am I going with this post?

What struck me is that there are some people who are buying a Rolex for this sum of money. If they aren't using it in the way I described above they literally just think that it's cool to have one. It is worth it to them. Value is subjective after all.

But there are still people out there saying that Bitcoin's intrinsic value is 0. They think that it's the most useless digital thing to have. But I wonder what they would say when asked about putting a number on a round thing that tells time. Surely it would have some value > than 0. And this would be even higher when we travel back in time. Say a thousand years or so. What value would a Rolex have back then? If you think about it, wouldn't it perhaps be one of the most valuable things to have back then? No one in the world possessed a mechanical device that could so accurately measure time. It could have been something that wars would have been fought over... But today, it's actual functional value is ~ 0.

What about Bitcoin? Does it have 0 value in monetary terms? Bitcoin is simple: it is literally a trustless ledger that keeps track of all the changes within it. But this is exactly why it is so valuable. We can use it to send some BTC to someone else without a middle man and with very little fees. This is especially true when we talk about a great deal of monetary value. Moving millions of dollars simply requires a key with which you send an amount to another wallet. This simple function is in today's world still a revolutionary act. Will this be the case in the future as well? Obviously not! We already have so many more advanced blockchains than Bitcoin and Bitcoin will very likely be forgotten about in 100 years.

But if someone is willing to buy a Rolex for $41k, then surely one Bitcoin is worth a lot more than $23k? I am looking forward to adding some more zeros to Bitcoins value in the future :)

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