Typical splitting of hairs. We have a group of people playing a glorified game of tiddlywinks/Monopoly/cards, proclaiming that they know more than us about the

Typical splitting of hairs. We have a group of people playing a glorified game of tiddlywinks/Monopoly/cards, proclaiming that they know more than us about the dreaded blockchain, believing that the blockchain will change everything and giving themselves grand 'fintech' job titles. A respected publication deems this activity 'non-economic' with some broad brush strokes, actually being generous by including the exchange of 'tiddlywinks' for 'marbles'/'Monopoly money' as actually 'economic'. Before the web when kids had to interact you could have a grand game of monopoly playing, kids and neighbours kids involved. There could be high stakes rents being 'earned' and all kinds of virtual activity. Meanwhile the gardening-jobs for pocket money, the car washing for pocket money, the preparing of food for actual food might not be getting done due to the distraction of the all important Monopoly game. A parent could gently infer that the Monopoly game with side bets for tiddlywinks was not real economic value, thinking that getting the car washed, the garden done and the food prepared was 'economic value' as pocket money, albeit in mere 'fiat' currency was involved. Wanting to perpetuate the game the most irksome of the children could claim that their Monopoly game was economic value, after all the light and heat is on and some distant coal miner is getting paid for that. They could also claim that there is wear and tear going on and that Parker Games/Waddingtons are profiting from making replacement Monopoly games. They could also claim that washing the car was not 'economic value' as that pocket money is merely transferred inside the household. Give the article some credit, we have got some rather self absorbed individuals devoting their lives to playing around with digital tiddlywinks, ponzi-kittens and the coin to rule them all - Bitcoin. In the broader sense, after the closing of The Silk Road, evidence is extremely thin on the ground that any of this activity is economically useful. Is Uber 'economically useful'? I'm as critical as the next person of Uber however, love it or loath it, Uber does get people from A to B and provides a means for people to earn a living. That much is clear and I don't have to ask my inner nine year old child for spurious reasons to argue otherwise.