The True Value of Bitcoin
It took two economists one three-course meal and two bottles of wine to calculate the fair value of one Bitcoin: $200.
It took an extra day for them to realize they were one decimal place out: $20, they decided, was the right price for a virtual currency that was worth $1,200 a year ago, flirted with $20,000 in December, and is still around $8,000. Setting aside the fortunes lost on it this year, Bitcoin, by their calculation, is still overvalued, to the tune of about 40,000 percent. The pair named this the Côtes du Rhône theory, after the wine they were drinking.
“It’s how we get our best ideas. It’s the lubricant,” says Savvas Savouri, a partner at a London hedge fund who shared drinking and thinking duties that night with Richard Jackman, professor emeritus at the London School of Economics. Their quest is one shared by the legions of traders, techies, online scribblers, and gamblers and grifters mesmerized by Bitcoin. What’s the value of a cryptocurrency made of code with no country enforcing it, no central bank controlling it, and few places to spend it? Is it $2, $20,000, or $2 million? Can one try to grasp at rational analysis, or is this just the madness of crowds?
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