Thought it may help new comers to apprehend the value of a bitcoin from a different angle than just speculation:
The intrinsic value of a bitcoin is the total energy and computational/informational content that went into creating it (incl. energy to produce computing resource materials, silicon, etc, human labour, brainpower, encryption difficulty). The market value will tend toward the intrinsic value in the long term. I expect bitcoin values to become strongly correlated with the underlying kiloWatt-hour electrical energy price and oil, gas, coal (fossil fuels while they are still around) or fissile nuclear materials, etc. Depending on the independent circumstances of the markets in each of these energy generating fuels they correlate with gold, silver and other metal ratios over long periods. Metals are correlated with energy because that's what it takes to prospect for them and dig them up (it is not rocket science just economics).
In the short and medium terms premiums will probably be placed on bitcoins for various reasons; uniqueness, scarcity, anonymity, security. Also possible market manias or euphoric bubbles could erupt to distort values temporarily.
Money and energy have been joined at the hip since the beginning. Money is simply stored energy in some instances. Bitcoin is moving up the evolutionary ladder like atomic energy is to burning wood in caves.
