Why does Bitcoin have to be a currency that's backed by a government in order to have value?
Works of art including paintings and sculptures have fetched ridiculous amounts of money over the years, and those works are not currencies, but yet these works of art continue to fetch higher and higher prices each time they change hands. And these are things that you can't do a damn thing with other than look at them.
It's because scarce and desirable assets are the exact things that wealthy people are interested in owning.
I'll give you an example from one of my friends who is an art dealer at the top end of the spectrum. I visited his house several years ago and we got into a discussion about this topic. I remember asking him, "I don't get this art business at all. Why would anyone want to spend $100 million for a painting?"
And you know what his reply was?
He said, "You should try sending someone across the world $100 million dollars. Just try it. The amount of scrutiny and red tape by the banking system makes that task virtually impossible. But you know what you CAN DO? You can buy a Picasso worth $100 million and ship it anywhere in the world with no problem whatsoever. And because it's a scarce and desirable asset that holds its value globally, the person or business you sent the painting to can easily sell it today or 20 years from now for at least what it last sold for, plus a nice premium. So.... The art market is essentially a storage and transport mechanism for the wealthy to exchange value with each other outside of the bank system."
And when he told me that, the light bulb in my head turned on. I thought, "Now I get it. It's not about the "thing" in itself, it's about the ability of the thing to hold a certain value and it being easily transferable and portable."
And that's why Bitcoin is so attractive. It's a scarce and desirable asset (that's actually becoming more scarce over time) that can store value and be sent to anyone on the globe in a matter of minutes, and the shipping costs are virtually non-existent. And because it exists outside of the banking system, the transactions can't be instantly questioned, confiscated, blocked, seized or stolen like money traveling across the international banking system can, especially if that money is traveling to certain third-world countries.
So...
Bitcoin is a modern-day wealth storage and transfer mechanism for the wealthy. That's what it is. It's got nothing to do with it being a currency, or being able to buy coffee with it one day, or any of that other trivial bullshit that small naysayers seem obsessed about talking about. It's already serving its purpose for the wealthy of the world, and it really doesn't need to do anything more than what it is already doing to be an ongoing success.