The Skeptic’s Question
“Why is Bitcoin worth anything? You can’t hold it. You can’t eat it. No government backs it.”
This is the most common question people ask about Bitcoin. It is also a great question. The answer starts with understanding what gives anything value in the first place.
What Makes Something Valuable?
A dollar bill is just paper. A gold bar is just a shiny rock. Neither has much practical use compared to food, shelter, or tools. Yet people have traded gold for thousands of years and dollars for over a century.
Things become valuable when enough people agree they are valuable — and when they have the right properties. Economists generally point to a few key traits:
- Scarcity — Limited supply. You cannot just make more of it.
- Durability — It does not rot, rust, or break easily.
- Portability — You can carry it or move it.
- Divisibility — You can break it into smaller pieces.
- Verifiability — You can confirm it is real.
Gold checks most of these boxes. So does Bitcoin — and in several ways, Bitcoin does it better.
Bitcoin’s Built-In Scarcity
Gold is scarce because it is hard to mine from the earth. Bitcoin is scarce because its code enforces a hard supply cap of exactly 21 million coins. No one can change this limit. No government can print more. No company can issue extra shares.
New Bitcoin enters circulation through mining. Miners earn a block reward for securing the network, but that reward shrinks over time through an event called the halving. As of early 2026, over 19.7 million of the 21 million have already been mined.
The remaining supply will trickle out more slowly with each passing decade. The last Bitcoin will not be mined until roughly the year 2140. This predictable, shrinking supply is unlike any government currency, where central banks can print new money at will.
Beyond Scarcity
Scarcity alone does not create value. There are plenty of scarce things nobody wants. Bitcoin has other properties that make it useful:
It works anywhere. You can send Bitcoin to anyone in the world. No bank approval needed. No currency conversion. No wire transfer delays. A transaction settles in about an hour, and for small payments, the Lightning Network makes it nearly instant.
No one controls it. Bitcoin runs on a decentralized network. No company can shut it down. No government can freeze your funds. For people living under unstable currencies or authoritarian regimes, this matters enormously.
It is verifiable. Anyone can audit Bitcoin’s supply. Anyone can verify a transaction. The rules are transparent and enforced by code, not by trust in any institution.
Network effect. The more people who use Bitcoin, the more useful it becomes. Millions of people now hold Bitcoin. Major financial institutions offer Bitcoin products. Businesses accept it. This growing adoption reinforces its value, just as a phone network becomes more valuable with each new user.
What’s Next
Bitcoin’s value comes from its scarcity, its useful properties, and the growing network of people who use it. None of these depend on any single company or government — which is exactly the point.
To understand how Bitcoin’s supply schedule works, read about the block reward. For the basics of what Bitcoin is, start with What is Bitcoin?. And to see the smallest unit you can own, look up the satoshi — one hundred-millionth of a Bitcoin.