RE: Common Bitcoin Metcalfe Models, Explained

ok I'm no trader or economist, so my comments reflect how much i may have understood your post.

That equation for valuing bitcoin seems almost superficial. it's seems more like an explanation for what modifies the underlying value of bitcoin, not creates that value. It's more like mapping transactions and use of bitcoin.

I always figured the actual value of BTC, if there's any at all, is based on the cost of energy required to mine it. As an underlying value, this reflects more on what I think value is: the cost of labor. I'm classically a marxist on this. If value is from labor, what labor is there for BTC? Instead of the cost of a worker straining their biological muscles by work to create a commodity, the 'energy' on BTC would be the energy used by computer power to mine the coin.

This theory, if true, would mean that if energy were completely free, or near free, that absence of cost to mining BTC would drastically reduce the value of BTC. If it's price were high, that would only reflect speculation modifying an otherwise cheap underlying value.

What are you thoughts on this? Does BTC's value come from the cost of energy required to mine it?

So there are 3 primary models that have been used to value a bitcoin:

Network-based (like this)
Production-based (where you dig into the cost as you mentioned - see Adam Hayes) - the largest issue with this is that huge assumptions need to be made in regards to the cost of electricity, and other things. These are big unknowns and you would be making, at best, close guesses. I have tried and have the work if you're interested. So the results can easily be fitted based on these assumptions
Its value as a currency, and supply.

The first and the last have been the best way to go. Energy aside, if people are supporting the network via transactions and security (mining), we can tie a value back to it. In a social network, if nobody is online, the network has no value, as the people are the commodity. Much is true here, where the coin is the commodity, as a general premise. # 3 suffers from the opposite of what #2 does, but still comes closer than #2. We lose sight here from a macro not a micro perspective. Chris Burniske is the source of #3.