Re: "Backing" - what does this actually MEAN?

Yes subjective. Both types of value is subjective. That is why everyone should decide what they want for themselves in the market, and what they are willing to sacrifice to achieve it. If you already have some of that what you want, that will change your values, also your total situation, and not least, your personal preferences. If you like fresh vegetables, you might want to trade some of your time in a job, to somebody who wants the work done, in stead of growing the vegetables yourself. Nobody has the knowledge, nor the right, to decide for others. This is why voluntary action is best: more freedom (by definition), and more wealth for everybody.

If so, do you agree that we could say that gold value is backed by its inherent objective properties through an individual's subjective valuation of them? If you don't like the word "backed" used here, what is, in your opinion, the best term describing the sustenance of value by objective properties?

Backed is a broad word, but in the realm of money it means that there is some entity that is willing and able to exchange the backed money for a specified amount of something else. So gold is unbacked. I prefer to use direct use value. That value is not dependent of what others think (well if you want it, because others think it is pretty, but not yourself, that is in the fringe). Also in the realm of money, intrinsic value is the same as value for direct use, but that word has the same definition problem, because it is used for other things. By the way, I can not think of anything that have absolutely no direct use value, absolutely in the mathematical sense, after someone has selected it and brought it to the market.

Gold is unbacked, bitcoin is unbacked. In history there has been gold-backed banknotes. We have Casascius coins, but that is really the bitcoins itself hidden inside the coin. I think it is inevitable that bitcoin-backed notes will appear in the market, and I welcome it. Bitcoin would be excellent for backing.

If it remains for an individual to decide what property should be considered as valuable (subjective valuation), therefore any subjective value would necessarily be direct use value (as you said before in respect to gold prettiness). If so, then, say, bitcoin security should by logical necessity be considered as direct use value too since there are many people who value bitcoin security high, right?

No, all value is subjective, but some things have an exchange value component in addition to use value, and some things have only exchange value (fiat and bitcoin).

As I said, most things have at least a miniscule use value, for bitcoin (I am talking of the actual bitcoins) that could be the bragging value that the first miners might see in their otherwise valueless coins. The system itself, not the actual coins but the totality of the system, the invention, the miners, the fact that the system can transform the society, is of course extremely valueable, but it is difficult to decide exactly how much. You could try to say that the bitcoin system is more valuable than the gold money system, or the fiat system, or some other system, like the internet or the sea transport system or the judicial system or the police force. But we are concerned with what is the value of one dollar, one ounce of gold or one bitcoin. That is the units of the money systems.

I can't accept your reasoning as convincing. We started with some abstract property of gold being purely subjective (i.e. prettiness to the eye) which you called its direct use, and now you turn to saying that we are concerned with what is the value of one dollar, one ounce of gold or one bitcoin. Then you say that the system itself, not the actual coins, is extremely valuable, but can't I say absolutely the same about gold, i.e. gold "system" being highly valuable for its properties, not actual coins? And now you implicitly suppose (not pronouncing it since it would sound too false) that security, anonymity and whatnot of actual bitcoins can't be direct use value for their owners. I am using you logic here, and nothing beyond it, and you suddenly stop using it in respect to bitcoins...

How come really?