The Myth of Intrinsic Value
True intrinsic value can only exist in what is universally interoperable between the minds of all rational actors - everything else is merely ascribed value.
The Fallacy of Gold
Gold is often held up as having intrinsic value, but this is a fundamental misunderstanding. Gold's value is largely usurpation value - value that someone else tries to impose on us through the argument "you ought to see this as valuable."
• "It's valuable because others find it beautiful"
• "It's valuable because it can be used in electronics"
• "It's valuable because people have always valued it"
The Utility Paradox
If real-world utility determined monetary value, why aren't wheels or fire used as stores of value? These inventions arguably provided more utility to human civilization than any piece of gold. This paradox reveals a crucial truth: sound money isn't based on utility value at all.
The Truth About Sound Money
What made gold valuable as money wasn't its practical applications, but its sound money properties: scarcity, durability, divisibility, recognizability, and portability. Its supposed "intrinsic value" was always secondary.
Gold succeeded as money because of these properties:
• Durable and doesn't degrade
• Divisible into smaller units
• Universally recognizable
• Portable relative to its value
Bitcoin's Pure Approach
Bitcoin takes this understanding to its philosophical conclusion. Instead of pretending to have real-world utility, Bitcoin optimizes purely for sound money principles. It divorces itself entirely from the burden of requiring real-world applications.
• Perfect scarcity (21 million)
• Absolute durability (digital)
• Infinite divisibility
• Universal verifiability
• Instant portability
The Medium vs The Value
Here we arrive at a crucial realization: money is not meant to be valuable in itself - it is a store OF value, a MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE for value. This is a critical mental hurdle that many struggle to cross.
True Universal Value
Bitcoin achieves something unprecedented: it creates a form of value that is truly interoperable between all rational minds. We can all agree on exactly what Bitcoin is - it has objectively the best sound money principles ever designed, without the distraction of trying to justify its value through external utility.
This is why Bitcoin represents a philosophical breakthrough as much as a technological one. It is the first form of money that derives its value purely from its monetary properties, making it the most honest and transparent store of value ever created.