Let me pose a couple simple questions.
-If VISA announced that they're going to begin operating in 10 new countries, would their valuation go up?
-If VISA announced that they have a new method for combating fraud on their network, would their valuation go up?
-Does VISA's valuation partly come from its assets and the capital that it owns?
Without complicating the questions any more than necessary, the answer to these questions is most certainly yes.
You see the thing with bitcoin is that everyone is so lost and caught up in the currency. But Bitcoin is a currency and a payment network.
It doesn't matter what the value of the currency is. We could value the currency at $.0001. Which, if we're talking about Satoshis, is actually about what its worth today. The media probably wouldn't be too caught up with bitcoin frenzy if its currency were valued at $.0001 and the talks about bubbles wouldn't be nearly as pronounced today. Proof to that is that bitcoin's price actually was that at one point in time and rose to dollar parity and yet bitcoin was never even on the radar for the media or anyone for that matter.
The price of the currency doesn't matter. This isn't like a physical commodity where the price of oil at $300/barrel versus $50/barrel has very real consequences in what is received for the money.
Let me make another analogy. An arcade uses token for all of the games inside. To have fun using the arcade, you must exchange your dollars for tokens and then use those tokens in the arcade games to have some fun. There is no underlying value in the token itself. However, the arcade itself does have underlying value. People go there to have fun and as a business it has real value. But, to use this business, you must use their tokens in order to play games. It doesn't matter what the exchange rate of the token is worth. That doesn't change the underlying value of what the arcade provides. The arcade decides one day, instead of exchanging 4 tokens for $1, you now only get 2 tokens for $1. You can still play the same amount of games for $1 though. So each token is worth more itself, but it still doesn't have any underlying value itself. Again, the underlying value of the arcade is still based on providing entertainment to its users.
This is Bitcoin. People who get caught up in the price of what a bitcoin is worth aren't seeing the big picture. Almost every bubble article I read on bitcoin is simply looking at the price charts of the token and comparing it to past bubbles and nothing more. They get caught up in making claims that the currency of bitcoin has no underlying value. The truth is that none of this matters.
As I mentioned previously, bitcoin is both a currency and a payment network. The currency is simply a token that is used if you wish to use this payment network. The payment network, like the arcade, is where the underlying "intrinsic" value is found. The benefits of this payment network are profound and numerous as no other payment network on earth has all of these qualities combined.
1) Decentralized
2) Global
3) Permission-less (anyone, anywhere can use it)
4) Counterfeit proof
5) Peer-to-Peer
6) Fraud proof consumer protection
7) Nearly unhackable
8) Immutable
9) Extensible for use with smart contracts
10) Can't be confiscated
11) Low cost/fast transactions
12) Programmable
13) Deflationary monetary policy
14) Irreversible transactions
VISA might have some of these benefits. SWIFT might have some of these benefits. ACH might have some of these benefits. But no traditional financial payment network has all of these features. Arguing each feature on its own compared to traditional solutions ignores the fact that bitcoin has all of these features. Some people might value some of these things and not others. For example, an immigrant might value the fact that it is both global and low cost so that they can send remittances back to family overseas. A wealthy CEO might value that it can't be confiscated and is a deflationary store of value. A web developer might value that it is programmable. A merchant might value fraud protection and no chargebacks. An activist might value that it is decentralized and permissionless. The truth is that many people will value the bitcoin payment network for different reasons and it is the combination of all these reasons that gives bitcoin its underlying value. Unless these people stop valuing these things in a payment network, then it will continue to have value.
Back to my original questions, VISA's valuation comes partly to the capital and assets that it owns. Its value also comes from the services it provides. If VISA starts operating in additional countries, the value of the company would rise because it can now reach additional customers. Likewise, bitcoin, as a payment network, has underlying value because there are over 10,000 nodes all around the world that are running this network. There is about 12 Exahash/sec worth of computing power on the network currently. That's more than about 600 of the world's top supercomputers combined. You can't separate bitcoin the currency from the bitcoin blockchain. To use the arcade, you must use their token and this is a one of a kind in the world arcade. There is no other payment network that provides all of these features (listed above) with all of the same security, decentralization, computing power, etc. Each one of the features it provides adds additional value to the network and each feature will bring in different people who value different aspects of the network.
Hopefully some people found this all helpful.