The poor follow the rich, buying what they buy, wanting what they want. The rich look to the richer similarly. At the top however there is no one to look to exc

The poor follow the rich, buying what they buy, wanting what they want. The rich look to the richer similarly. At the top however there is no one to look to except for the gods. Just as flowers demonstrate more value than a toaster precisely because it shows a willingness to convert all value into prostration, so does a golden tower. Gold is valuable because it is rare and pretty and most importantly useless. (industrial applications are minor and also only a modern application) flowers to toasters are gold to oil. Gold is pure concentrated and destroyed value. It is giving up of true value in the survival sense for spiritual or emotional value. Super expensive clothes or bags are similar and even take it to the next level in that they decay via fashion trend. It is even more destruction of value. Diamonds similarly are more concentrated representations of value despite their market price being a sham. They serve an important purpose in signalling to find a person or thing that can give a person affirmations of value. Bitcoin and other digital currencies can concentrate to an infinite degree but lack aesthetic qualities. It doesn't impress women and doesn't impress our current gods because it isn't visible and can't be used as a status symbol to strangers. ("Traditionally" the "strangers" that can affirm value are women and gods. ) Bitcoin is accessed via knowledge of a key and it traditionally hasn't been a status symbol. (Unless it was knowledge of culture) However there is currently a paradigm shift from "traditional" values that are human/social/god based to newer values that revolve around knowledge, technology and non-human specific interestingness. Bitcoins growth initially was due to the futurist/cypherpunk movement. Other phases of growth include "early adopters" or "technologists". A recent large push has come from financial types who don't want to miss out and have traditionally used market signals to follow value without needing to understand underlying reasons. The biggest push will need to come from all the value locked up in traditional storage but to do that a paradigm shift needs to happen where gold becomes valueless. I don't know if Bitcoin can do this yet. Perhaps when smart contracts start taking over the world and blurs the line between digital and non-digital. Forks however seem to muddy the signalling potential though. The mass of people who understand what a "vintage" Bitcoin needs to be big and btc doesn't have the uniqeness of collectibles like art or antiques. In the end it's important to distinguish between symbols of value which often require destruction of value in their creation and actual value which serves some secular need. Symbols are built entirely on faith. Strangely, this can last much longer than "real" value. Salt and grain used to be real value but aren't anymore due to technology but gold has lasted thousands of years. To require something to need "real" value is to ignore the importance of humans.