What are you exchanging for Bitcoin when you buy it? You are trading your fiat currency whatever it is. Now, if you were exchanging it for silver or gold coins, you would something of real valued used in the real world. Yet, you are exchanging it for air? If Bitcoin is that valuable, nobody would be selling their Bitcoin? Instead, they are exchanging it for the fiat currency be it the dollar, British pound, Canadian dollar, etc.? It does not pass the stink test.
Don't get me wrong. I am not a Bitcoin true believer or claim to be an expert on what all of humanity finds of value for all of time, and that's why I provided the PTJ quote. What is an asset changes over time as does their valuations. Like it or not, right now in history, Bitcoin is an asset and is being perceived in that way by more and more individuals and institutions.
You might be surprised to know how many people buy bitcoin with items of value other than fiat currency, some of them legal and yes, some illegal.
I am going to ignore the,
"If Bitcoin is that valuable, nobody would be selling their Bitcoin."
People are exchanging their Bitcoin for fiat currencies, as well as a multitude of other goods and services of real value in the real world, including gold and silver coins, which is the disproof of your "value" statement above.
The understanding of value based on your financial olfactory is relative and is not inline with the likes of PTJ. For some reason I value his ability to sniff out money more than both your, or my own, "Stink Test". A few years back I helped a friend convert an old RV park into a retreat center. When we upgraded the septic system, to me, it stunk like shit. But to the Septic Contractor it smelled like money.
I look at Bitcoin as a piece of Fine Art. An amazingly beautiful piece of art that has as part of its beauty the facility for fractionalized ownership.
I see alt-coins as Pop-Art. Some will become Warhol's and the rest will become almost worthless.
The Art Mafia's creation of value in a specific artist's body of work is very similar to the way value is created with digital currencies, its just more decentralized.
What is your perceived value of the painting below? For me it looks something I could buy at Ikea for $50 bucks. But for others its worth $45 million.
In full disclosure I do not own any Bitcoin. I have made a few trades of CME Bitcoin Futures but the volume sucks for my style of trading.