A Middle-Aged Woman Trying to Understand Bitcoin | Episode 6

Why Is Internet Money Worth So Much?

At this point,
I finally started asking the biggest question:

Why is Bitcoin worth so much?


Honestly,
my original opinion was simple:

“It’s just internet data.”

So watching people pay enormous amounts of money for it felt completely insane to me.


But recently,
something finally started making sense.

Apparently, Bitcoin has a hard limit:

21 million coins.

That’s it.


No matter what happens,
there will never be unlimited Bitcoin.

And somehow,
that number became incredibly important.


Because normal money works differently.

Governments can increase the money supply.

More dollars can be created.

More yen can be created.

But Bitcoin was designed with a fixed supply from the beginning.


At that point,
I suddenly understood why people compare Bitcoin to gold.

Gold is valuable partly because it is difficult to increase.

Scarcity matters.

And Bitcoin supporters believe the same logic applies here.


Then I learned about something called “halving.”

Apparently, about every four years,
Bitcoin mining rewards get cut in half.


Years ago, miners earned much larger Bitcoin rewards.

Now the rewards are much smaller.

And over time,
new Bitcoin enters the system more slowly.


So not only is the supply limited…

the creation speed also slows down.

That apparently affects price psychology a lot.


And then I realised something important.

A lot of people are not actually using Bitcoin for everyday spending.

They are mostly holding it.


At that point,
Bitcoin started looking less like “future cash”…

and more like:

digital gold.


That changed my perspective quite a bit.

Because I originally thought crypto was mainly about payments.

But now it feels more connected to:

  • scarcity
  • long-term holding
  • inflation fears
  • future technology
  • financial philosophy

And recently,
large investors, companies and even governments started paying attention too.

That completely changed the atmosphere around Bitcoin.


Years ago,
crypto felt like internet chaos.

Now Bitcoin ETFs exist.

That part honestly surprised me.


Especially because I grew up thinking investing was mostly for wealthy people.

And crypto felt even further away from ordinary life.


But now,
in places like Australia,
people can even gain Bitcoin exposure through ETFs.

That suddenly made the whole thing feel more “real.”


Not safe.

Not fully understandable.

Just… more real.


At the same time,
I still feel conflicted.

Because I have seen both sides.


I know people who made life-changing money from crypto.

And I have also seen people completely destroy themselves chasing it.

So I cannot fully celebrate it either.


And honestly?

The price swings still look terrifying to me.

Bitcoin sometimes feels less like money…

and more like mass human emotion moving at internet speed.


But one thing I understand now is this:

Bitcoin’s value is not coming from convenience.

Because honestly,
it is not very convenient.


Its value seems to come from a strange combination of:

  • scarcity
  • belief
  • technology
  • network effects
  • human psychology
  • distrust of traditional systems

all mixed together.


At this point,
Bitcoin feels less like a normal investment…

and more like a giant global social experiment.


And honestly?

That part is kind of fascinating.


But now I have another question.

If Bitcoin relies on encryption and huge calculations…

what happens if future technology becomes too powerful?

Because apparently,
something called quantum computing might become a problem someday.

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