[Cryptography] Standards Trolls: Re: Bitcoin is a disaster.

[Patrick Chkoreff]

Theodore Ts'o wrote on 1/3/21 6:07 PM:

> Why the heck is Gold considered valuable?
> There are other metals which are rarer (and thus have a more limited
> supply) than Gold, such as for example, Ruthenium and Tellurium, and
> some of these elements have more industrial value than Gold. ... 

Gold is highly ductile, malleable, and inert, which are good properties
for a form of money-in-hand.  Do Ruthenium and Tellurium compete well on
those terms?  Gold also has a color which distinguishes it readily from
the silvery metals.  Also, as you hinted, Tellurium seems too rare to
function well as money.


> Note that if this has nothing to do with cryptography, or for that
> matter, any kind of technical question.  This is fundamentally a social
> question.  Whether you use the formulation "everyone agrees that X has
> value" or "everyone has the collective delusion that X has value", and
> whether X is Bitcoin, or Euro, or U.S. Dollar, or Dogecoin, this is
> more about psychology and belief rather than some kind of math or
> computer science question.

The great Carl Menger accurately observed that all value is subjective,
changing from person-to-person and even within the same person over
time, and that is why trade can simultaneously benefit both parties.


-- Patrick