It's more like hiding a treasure chest somewhere in the ocean (of cryptographic tokens) and then losing the map (private key) when your ship (filesystem) sinks. (Arrrr!) This is something that happens with physical objects of monetary value as well, including cash itself.
So without the knowledge of how much cash I'm hoarding in my closet, how can you accurately value USD? I don't know how much of the answer is “you can't, exactly, but there's enough other trading that it doesn't matter” (which could apply to Bitcoin as well) versus “the value is fixed by external factors such as the US government”.
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It's more like hiding a treasure chest somewhere in the ocean (of cryptographic tokens) and then losing the map (private key) when your ship (filesystem) sinks. (Arrrr!) This is something that happens with physical objects of monetary value as well, including cash itself.
So without the knowledge of how much cash I'm hoarding in my closet, how can you accurately value USD? I don't know how much of the answer is “you can't, exactly, but there's enough other trading that it doesn't matter” (which could apply to Bitcoin as well) versus “the value is fixed by external factors such as the US government”.