I'm a bit cynical, can you help explain to me?

I recently paid 0.02 BTC for the task of counting and listing the number of syllables in a list of 1503 star system names from a video game I play. The task was performed quickly and efficiently. I don't know who the entity was that performed the task. It could have been a 14-year-old girl in southern california. It could have been an 50-year-old estonian HVAC technician. It could have been a prototype artificial intelligence in a university laboratory. It could have been a 25-year-old Venezuelan saving up bitcoins to help feed his family. To me the identity doesn't matter; the work was performed and the result is valuable to me. I traded value for value, as if I paid the neighbor's kid with some cash to mow my lawn. I wanted a simple yet tedious task done quickly and it got done.

That is the value of bitcoin to me.

The price swings and "investment opportunities" are just a sideshow for me. More important to me are the decentralizing features that make the existence of this permissionless global marketplace possible.

/r/Bitcoin Thread