It is a simple yet not easy question to answer:
why does bitcoin have value?
The answer, we believe is summarized in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv2-6KDlZSEBitcoin has value because it has
both scarcity and utility. It is a limited
and useful resource. It is important to note that something must be BOTH in order to command a market value, NOT either.
Bitcoin is limited to the software-imposed hard limit of 21,000,000 bitcoin units ever in circulation. It is useful because it allows payment information to be secured by a decentralized computing network backed by magnitudes of raw hashing power. That raw hashing power is energy (electricity) converted into digital utility. Each transaction must compete (fee market) to be included in the next block of transactions which has a limited [block space] due to the block size limit (2MB) imposed on each ~10 minute block.
We can expect both the value to increase and the number of users to increase exponentially so long as the current technology maintains itself and remains both useful and in a limited abundance.
Bitcoin will always retain market value so long as miner nodes are actively contributing their hashing power to secure the network (proof of work).
Learn more about bitcoin at
http://diginomics.comI think Bitcoin has value because of its proven technology and narrative. It's mainly a Store of Value. It has a 21M supply cap, a small block size, minimal features. The technology is designed to be minimal to fulfill this narrative.
Bitcoin has minimal utility to be a Store of Value. It supports storing and transferring. If you believe or want Bitcoin to have more utility than that, you're going into Bitcoin maximalism. You'll go down the rabbit hole with people who think Bitcoin will eat all other currencies and assets.
I've written some posts on this.