Bitcoin has a few central value propositions: 1) It meets the criteria for a currency. It's divisible, portable, and durable. You might point out "Why dont we Runescape gold or pictures of Nicholas Cage then?" See #2. 2) It's non-counterfeitable and non-inflationary. Tons of people can print Nicholas Cage photos or dupe Runescape gold, but they cant create more than 21 million bitcoins. Why not just use gold or silver coins then? See #3. 3) Precious metals are slow and difficult to transfer. If you want to send the equivalent of $10 million USD in silver coins to Uzbekistan to buy howitzers, at best you can air ship upwards of 26,000 pounds of silver. That's going to cost you tens of thousands of dollars if you can air ship it at all. And take a day or two. Otherwise it's ships or rail depending upon where you are. Up that to weeks or months. Bitcoin will cost you <$2 USD in satoshis to do that. Why not just use paper currency that's backed by precious metals in a vault then? You can easily send a $10MM silver certificate within 24 hours. See #4. 4) Metal-backed paper currency requires a trustworthy third party to store, secure, transport, and audit those precious metals. That's expensive to maintain and impossible to hide. It's highly vulnerable to coercion or thieves with tanks because Gringott's Gold Vault is pretty freaking obvious. You have to trust that not a single person in the vault company has been defeated by a $5 wrench attack, otherwise how do you know your Gringott's Bucks are actually backed by anything? Bitcoin is inherently zero-trust. If someone transfers 50 bitcoins to your wallet, anyone can validate that the transaction occured "for real" without trusting anyone. It costs you nothing to maintain a wallet, it's impossible to tell how many (if any) you have, and you need little more than not sharing your credentials to secure it.