I understand that much. I can see how something starts at a certain price and then gets traded up. I have more difficulty, however, with the fact that simply forking a coin makes 12 billion dollars worth of value appear out of thin air.

I mean, let's do this a dozen times over if it's that easy? Who would ever start a new coin if forking Bitcoin is this profitable. The value I think is virtual... It does represent a value, but I don't think there are 12 billion worth of US dollars that can be taken out of Bitcoin Cash.