[Cryptography] Montana: A Post-Quantum Blockchain with Time as Scarcity

[cryptskii at proton.me]

>No.  Money is a proxy for *value*.  Time certainly has value, but it is not the only thing that has value.

Yeah, but I think you are missing the point.

I disagree that money is simply a proxy for value. Not all value can be priced. I value my relationships, my children, loyalty, health, and peace of mind, but none of those things can be reduced honestly to a dollar amount.

What money actually does in ordinary exchange is let you access someone else’s already spent time, effort, skill, labour, risk, planning, or stored production.

Even if I buy something from a factory line, I am still buying time. Someone designed the product. Someone built the machines. Someone maintained the line. Someone sourced the materials. Someone transported it. Someone stocked it. The final price is not just “value” in the abstract. It is accumulated human time and effort compressed into a form I can exchange for.

Convenience is the same thing. Convenience means I avoid doing something myself. What am I saving? Time. Even when I pay for expertise, I am paying for the years of time it took that person to become capable of doing the thing efficiently.

That is why barter eventually runs into friction. If I want what you have, but you do not want what I have, I have to spend additional time trading up into something you will accept. Money or gold reduces that friction. It saves the time otherwise wasted searching for a coincidence of wants.

So yes, you can say money is a proxy for value, but that does not make my point wrong. It just places the explanation one layer too high. In practice, most economic value collapses back into time: time spent, time saved, time transferred, or time made useful through labour and skill.