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sagenumen t1_izbd9nz wrote

Reply to comment by JWarder in Ethereum’s energy switch saves as much electricity as entire Ireland uses | The success of The Merge concept may now serve as a roadmap to enable a switch from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake in Bitcoin. by chrisdh79

What do you think gives any currency any actual value? You think $100 note is $100 worth of paper and ink?

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JWarder t1_izbhley wrote

The fact that I might be able to wheel and deal my way into an exchange of trash or treasure doesn't automatically make any the goods being exchanged "money". If you think "value" is an alias for "money" then that's a you problem.

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sagenumen t1_izbnj57 wrote

You avoided the question. And you chose Pokémon cards, not I.

But let’s consider some remote part of the world without access to the means to easily counterfeit these cards. They decide to exchange the various goods and services within their local economy for Pokémon cards. What are the cards, if not “money?”

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JWarder t1_izbu8mi wrote

Ha! You avoided the question.

You don't need to imagine remote areas of the world. Back in reality, we do have exchanges where cards are traded. Among collectors they will even directly trade cards for other non-pokemon goods. Some form of value clearly exists, and assessments of that value are (mostly) shared between participants. However, outside of that niche, pokemon cards have no value as "money".

We don't even have to use silly examples like collectable cards, you can also look to stocks and bonds. Stock exchanges are a large participant in modern financial systems. Enormous amounts of exchanges happen in routine and standardized ways with little friction. And yet, despite all the utility have have in the finance system, stocks, bonds, etc have limited utility as a form of "money".

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