How Bitcoin Proponents Maintain Faith in Non-Existent Money, Assets, or Value

When you ask a Bitcoin proponent why Bitcoin is an asset, money, or something of value, the answer is almost always the same and circular: Because people accept it. And why do people accept it? Because assets, money, or value are whatever people accept. This is a pure circular argument: it doesn't prove that Bitcoin is an asset, money, or valuable; rather, it assumes exactly what it is trying to prove.

If you look at economic definitions of these terms, you will nowhere find the formulation "whatever people accept." Acceptance is merely a consensus, and in the case of Bitcoin, you are consenting to have a specific number assigned to your cryptographic key. When you pay $100, $1,000, or a million dollars, all that has actually happened is that a network of computers recognizes that a certain number belongs to your key. That is all. Bitcoin is a protocol that assigns these numbers, enables their reassignment, and prevents their duplication through a decentralized network. That is all.

Faced with the fact that they have bought nothing but numbers, Bitcoin proponents resort to a new circular argument: "Look at a banknote or a bank account, those are just numbers too. Modern money is just a number." According to this logic, a number is money, and money is a number. However, this proves nothing; it is merely a repetition of the same claim in a different form.

Money, of course, is not a number. A number is a universal label used to express the quantity of something, while money is that "something." In the case of modern fiat money, that "something" is an obligation. Fiat money is an instrument of obligation that arises as credit granted by the banking system to individuals, businesses, or states, which must be repaid.

From this follows a clear, non-circular definition of an asset: an asset is a resource that brings future benefits. When you hold an instrument of obligation, it brings future benefits because those who owe the banks must work for you, offer you products and services, or settle your tax liabilities to repay their debt. If they fail to repay, banks seize their collateral, and you benefit through access to that property at bank auctions.

When the "money is a number" argument collapses, Bitcoin proponents switch to the "digital gold" analogy. Gold is a physical matter that is scarce, portable, and divisible. Following this logic, Bitcoin allegedly has the same properties, only as digital matter. But this analogy breaks down for two reasons.

First, "digital matter" is actually software or a file, like a program, a PDF, an image, or an audio recording. But a person whose key is assigned, for example, the number 10, cannot show 10 "digital objects." There is no concrete digital "thing" that could be analyzed to determine if it is scarce, portable, or divisible.

Second, nothing digital is inherently scarce because it can be copied with a mouse click in any desired number of copies. The idea of "digital scarcity" is an oxymoron.

In Bitcoin, there is no scarcity, only a protocol-based limit stating that the sum of numbers assigned to all keys cannot exceed 21 million. This is merely an arbitrary rule, similar to agreeing that the sum of numbers in your Excel spreadsheet must not exceed a certain amount. This does not create scarce money, an asset, or "Excel gold."

When even these arguments fail, proponents resort to ad hominem attacks: "You don't understand Bitcoin," "You can't afford it," "You didn't get in on time so you're salty," "Boomer," or similar insults.

This is, therefore, how Bitcoin proponents maintain faith in non-existent money, assets, and value. They have given up real resources merely so that a protocol of an anonymous author can display numbers on a screen, and they must somehow convince themselves and others that they received something in proportion to those numbers. But they received nothing. "Money," "asset," and "value" are just words they use in this persuasion, not something they actually possess.