Bitcoin, like the dollar, divorces value from utility

I was doing the dishes today and thought about how valuable stainless steel was in the application of a sink. And then I thought about how little value carpet would be in that same application. The value of my sink was derived directly from the properties of stainless steel. It was easy to clean, resisted rusting and didn’t hold onto odors. If the properties had changed to those of a carpet, you can imagine how hard it would be to clean the sink after doing the dishes!!

The problem society has increasingly faced with money is that we have divorced value from utility. We think that money can be digital and conceptual instead of a physical asset like gold. 

Bitcoin is just a new version of this divorce. People describe it as “digital gold” but digital gold is no better than digital copper or digital apples. Such advocates for digitalization do not even really believe this. They do not fill their cars up with “digital gas” or drive their “digital vehicles” to the “digital store” to buy “digital groceries”. They don’t access the internet through “digital satellites” sending the signal through “digital cables” to their “digital computers”. Nor do they think a “digital self” is somehow equivalent to their real self which needs the real gas, car, groceries, satellites, and computer. They don’t digitize their lives because deep down they know that to acquire a digital asset is the equivalent of buying nothing at all.

For this reason, digitized assets are a lie, an empty value at best and a tool of malicious deception at worst. Bitcoin, like dollars, cannot be valuable because neither have any real properties. Bitcoin, or any other kind of tokenized money like Central Bank Digital Currencies, cannot be defined as anything other than a trademarked number, a mere digit. 

What are the value of these digits?

1

6 feet

21 million Bitcoin

7.4 gallons

50 dollar

34,000,000,000

666

13 pounds

42

These numbers, digits, and measurements mean nothing without a substance backing them. 

This is why those who hold bitcoin and other “digital assets” depend on the Greater Fool Theory. They need someone else to be a greater fool than them to accept bitcoin at a higher “price”. This can only end badly for the holders of bitcoin. 

On a side note, is it any wonder that humanity, in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, conceived for itself the digital equivalent of a Golden Calf?  When the Hebrews grew impatient with Moses, they gathered their gold and created an idol.  The Hebrews worshipped the Golden Calf as if it had brought them out of the land of Egypt. 

“Aaron took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” Exodus 32:4

So many have said that Bitcoin is the savior of mankind, a substitute to the corruption of Central Bank fiat money and tyrannical government power. It seems fitting that this world, in its foolishness, mindless atheism, and moral inferiority has manifested for itself this epitome of worthless wealth, digital gold. It seems appropriate that those who worship Bitcoin should receive the same rebuke as the Hebrews.

“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’

“I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them.” - Exodus 32:7-10

I never made the connection between bitcoin and the golden calf of Exodus 32 until now.

In the same way that the golden calf attempted to substitute an idol for God, so too does Bitcoin divorce wealth from value. The same idolatrous heart created both. Both should be rejected for the same reason idolatry must be rejected. Believers should reject both because of the first 3 commandments of the Law from Exodus 20:

1. Do not have other gods besides Me. 

2. Do not make idols for yourself.

3. Do not misuse the name of the Lord.

Just as the Hebrews were slaughtered for this sin, so too will those who value Bitcoin, the dollar, and other forms of fiat “digital wealth” be wiped out.

“Moses told them, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Every man fasten his sword to his side; go back and forth through the camp from entrance to entrance, and each of you kill his brother, his friend, and his neighbor.’ The Levites did as Moses commanded and about 3000 men fell dead that day among the people.” Exodus 32:27-28

There is much to say about these parallels thousands of years apart. Suffice this as a conclusion. To understand the power of the temptation of this idolatry, one must understand that Ponzi schemes and idols all work for a time and then implode under the weight of their own deceptions and our collective need for the truth. While there may be circulation for a time in the form of a “price”, the Greater Fool Theory GUARANTEES that the holders of Bitcoin will be wiped out.

Bitcoin is the savior of humanity no more than the golden calf brought the Hebrew out of the land of Egypt. This is why Bitcoin and the dollar becoming worthless is a mathematical certainty.