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If you believe in "labor theory of value", Bitcoins require investment and labour to be created. All these computers from home CPUs to ASICs require some notice
by oleganza 13y ago
If you believe in "labor theory of value", Bitcoins require investment and labour to be created. All these computers from home CPUs to ASICs require some noticeable amount of work to be done to get assembled and then mine blocks.
Same thing with gold or anything.
Except, of course, labor theory was always wrong for a simple reason: the labor is expended because of expectation to satisfy a demand. So the value must already exist (or be anticipated) in a form of demand. Just because I waste my day and money doing some software won't create any value. There should be other people out there who could do something useful to them with my software, regardless of how much time I spent on it.
Costs and rewards are highly correlated on the market because of competition. If you make big profits, more people will go in and compete on the price with you. So it may seem that costs determine price, but it's the other way around. You expend work only in expectation of being paid for it afterwards (with some profit).