If you're calculating it by comparing the prices of hardware you're not coming up with the real value but the lowest possible value that keeps miners mining. Why would the lowest value be the "real" value? You don't measure the real value of a car by the cost of parts and labor needed to make it. If we did that a lamborghini would be worth $50,000 instead of 500,000.
(hope it makes sense.. i had a few drinks but tried best to keep my thoughts logical tonight)
in short: price and value are not the exact same numbers
It makes perfect sense. I asked because you were pointing to the real value of Bitcoin as the value of acquisition and I've always thought that the real value should be the average retail value.
If we compare Bitcoin to goods sold at 300% the acquisition cost it starts to look much better. I wasn't even thinking of such high numbers but I guess it should be always trading at the very least 10% above the minimum needed to sustain the network. Half of the retail (150%) would be perfect as a stable average since nobody has to market Bitcoin. It's only acquisition and profit.
your always going to get varience due to speculation and othr things. but generally "value" is a range of a healthy 2-3x above cost
but as i said in another post. if you take away the speculation of volatility. and look at the baseline.. then you can make good judgement of the range of value that prices will sit within. so i prefer to only concentrate on the baseline.. yea i never care about ATH
when i judge the value growth per year i dont shout out $20k
i shout
2016 always above $300
2017 always above $900
2018 always above $5800
but yea "value" right now is $5800-$20k (centering more around $6k $18k)
depending whether your a buyer or seller is where you will judge "best" value (buyers want low sellers want high)