Those all have some kind of use value, and a story attached. Gold makes beautiful jewelry, collector’s cards remind people of childhood and baseball flory, art is lovely to look at and a way to flaunt wealth or feel a connection through the ages. You can look at all three and feel a fuzzy glow of happiness as you ponder the attached narrative.
My point was that, if the author’s argument is true, bitcoin will only have value as a pure collectible if people maintain some wider narrative that opposes the argument in the essay.
No one would collect a sterile piece of cardboard devoid of any story, just as no one would collect “Digital token #385839, definitively devoid of use”.
I’m not saying Bitcoin needs to become a useful currency to maintain a value. I’m saying it needs to have people believe it will, or to believe some other narrative about it which makes them consider it as more than a collectible.
That feels like a rationalization of an emotional argument.
Gold's current value is not related to its function as a material for jewelry, but from a myth that it is a store of value. If people would stop believing the myth, the cost of gold would plummet and stabilize around the value it provides as a material for jewelry.
Similarly, "art is lovely" is a really stretched argument. If you want, you could print your transaction block hash and consider it pretty as a math-art concept.
So yes, bitcoin needs people to believe in its value to remain valuable, much like everything else that is not a raw utility - nations, religions, money, corporations, gold, baseball cards, and so on.
Heck, even Ferraris would become much cheaper if people only valued them for their function. They cost a lot primarily because we value them highly due to myths and scarcity.
imagine if tomorrow, we suddenly find ourselves mining gold from asteroids, and that gold suddenly became super-abundant. Would the price of gold drop to match just the material usage value (e.g., for jewellery and electronics)?
My point was that, if the author’s argument is true, bitcoin will only have value as a pure collectible if people maintain some wider narrative that opposes the argument in the essay.
No one would collect a sterile piece of cardboard devoid of any story, just as no one would collect “Digital token #385839, definitively devoid of use”.
I’m not saying Bitcoin needs to become a useful currency to maintain a value. I’m saying it needs to have people believe it will, or to believe some other narrative about it which makes them consider it as more than a collectible.