Why does crypto have any value?

For the same uncomfortable reason anything else does: enough people accept it. Which is also why the price moves the way it does.

Nothing backs it, and pretending otherwise helps nobody. A government currency is backed by a state that demands taxes in it; gold is backed by several thousand years of people agreeing that it counts. Crypto has neither.

What it has instead is a set of properties some people want enough to pay for: a supply nobody can expand by decree, transfers that cross borders without permission in minutes, and an asset that does not depend on a domestic bank staying solvent.

Whether those properties are worth today's price is a genuine open question, and anyone who tells you with certainty is selling something.

What follows from having no floor: prices move violently in both directions, and the same reasoning that justifies a rise justifies nothing about the next one. Treat any figure attached to a future date as a guess with a motive.

The case against checking the price every day takes the argument further.

Last checked 19 Oct 2026.