No, Marxism Does Not Explain Bitcoin’s Value

I’m writing on Labor Day, so of course, I’m thinking about all the pathetic confusions on this whole topic. The number one fallacy is the labor theory of value. The idea here is that things and actions are made valuable by how much work we put into making them. Sounds intuitively right. Actually, it’s completely wrong. Things have value because you and I value them, regardless of labor inputs.

It turns out that the crypto intellectual space is replete with this simple mistake. A widespread view is that Bitcoin is valuable only because of the proof-of-work method that demands some CPU power be applied to solving complex algorithms. That’s how the network establishes both access to the ledger and the authority to change it. Because of this work, Bitcoin obtains value as a reflection and necessarily, even mechanically.

Again, this is completely wrong.

I’ve noticed this…