Checked 9 September 2026
You asked
bitcoin has zero intrinsic value
We checked
Claim: Bitcoin has zero intrinsic value
This isn't a settled factual question: "intrinsic value" is a contested concept, and under the mainstream subjective-value view nothing—gold, stocks, fiat currency, bitcoin—has intrinsic value in an objective sense, while cash-flow-based critics say bitcoin fails that specific test. So the claim depends on which value theory you adopt, not on evidence that resolves it either way.
Claim: Bitcoin has zero intrinsic value
Evidence can't settle this"Intrinsic value" is not a concept economics has settled on: prominent economists like Willem Buiter and Warren Buffett argue Bitcoin has none because it produces no cash flow, while mainstream marginalist economics (since Menger) holds that no asset—including gold, stocks, or fiat currency—has "intrinsic" value in any objective sense, since value is inherently subjective; whether Bitcoin "has zero intrinsic value" therefore depends on which contested value theory one adopts, not on evidence that can resolve the question either way.
This turns entirely on what "intrinsic value" is defined to mean, and that definition isn't settled even in economics. If it means value from non-monetary utility (something you can eat, burn, build with, or that generates cash flow), then yes, bitcoin has none — it produces nothing and has no industrial use to speak of. But under that same strict standard, gold's industrial/decorative use is a small fraction of its market price, and fiat currency has no intrinsic value at all by this definition either — both are held mainly because others accept them. So the claim is true only if you apply a standard that would also flatten most of what people call money or store-of-value assets to "zero." Whether that's the right standard to judge bitcoin by is a values question, not a factual one.
The weaker but real counter: scarcity, verifiability, and network effects are themselves a form of economic value that markets price continuously, even though they aren't "intrinsic" in the physical-utility sense — dismissing that as worth exactly zero ignores that the same argument would zero out currency itself.
Alan Greenspan told Bloomberg TV that bitcoin looked like a bubble, saying: "You have to really stretch your imagination to infer what the intrinsic value of bitcoin is. I haven't been able to do it," giving the critique its first widely reported voice.
Brookfield Asset Management CEO Bruce Flatt told Bloomberg bitcoin has "no intrinsic value," explicitly defining intrinsic value as cash flow or convertibility into a cash-flow stream — a narrower definition than the one economists like Greenspan had used.
Johns Hopkins economist Steve Hanke tweeted that bitcoin was "a highly speculative asset with a fundamental value of ZERO," introducing the specific "zero" framing into the debate.
Bloomberg ran a piece headlined "Bitcoin Has Zero Intrinsic Value. Some People Are OK With That," built around Hanke's tweet, which put the exact phrasing in front of a mass audience and made it a shorthand line.
The line was repeated by figures including Jamie Dimon, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey, Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Warren Buffett, turning it into a standard talking point cited across financial media.
The phrase traces to a running argument among economists that bitcoin lacks the cash-flow or asset backing needed to be objectively priced. Alan Greenspan gave the claim its first high-profile airing in December 2013, and the exact wording "zero intrinsic value" was cemented in the mainstream by a March 2021 Bloomberg headline built around a tweet from economist Steven Hanke. From there it became a stock line repeated by bank executives, central bankers and commentators whenever bitcoin's price fell.
References