Does bitcoin really have any real-world value backing it?

US debt surpasses 4 trillion, and the perennial debate on mining energy resurfaces.

Author: Phil Haunhorst

Translation: Saoirse, Foresight News

This weekend, Peter Schiff reignited the debate over Bitcoin’s value proposition. He claimed that the energy consumed in the mining process leaves behind nothing to provide an underlying source of value for Bitcoin.

Jeff Swanson, a self-proclaimed "Bitcoin maximalist" (those who have strong faith in Bitcoin, consider it the only valuable crypto asset, and reject other public blockchains and altcoins), previously declared publicly that Bitcoin is the future of money. Peter Schiff countered, and their debate brought the classic “source of monetary value” argument back into the crypto spotlight.

Peter Schiff Refutes the Argument That Bitcoin Has Value Support

In Swanson’s original post, he outlined three main pillars of Bitcoin’s value, with energy consumption as the foremost, followed by fixed issuance and high computational power.

Schiff directly rejected this logic. He wrote that energy is completely dissipated the moment miners consume it and leaves behind nothing to maintain the network. In his view, mining is about consuming value, not storing it.