I don’t have any ability to make choices about it that depend on any conscious valuation.
But do you doubt I value it because I am not buying or selling it?
I suppose near infinite, in that I would certainly sacrifice everything I have to protect it - given it represents the survival of all of us - which for me at least would be the apex of value.
It is worth noting that value can often be measured in currency, but not always. It is ultimately an ordering of everything, by kind and quantity.
In the end, even money is just another “thing” which we value on a gradient and relative to context (what we need to survive, we value a lot. To live Without stress, a lot, but less. More than that, even less, even if we are ambitious.)
Market value comes directly from each of our personal, “intrinsic” as another commenter called it, valuations. There is no market value where there are no personal valuations. But there can be personal valuations where there is no market.
Each of us still prioritizes what we have against what we want, and the costs to us of that, even if we were hermits. Each of spends our time, the ultimate resource, based on our relative values of things.
That is the source of all “value” or “worth”. Individual or (and before) collective.
Saying people don't place the value in the monetary realm is amusing, since money is supposed to be fungible for all value. :)
That said, I get it. Some people place a ridiculously high value on having the latest. I think I used to be in that population, to an extent. Nowadays, I confess this mentality leaves me ridiculously confused.
It's not really symmetric. It's not hard to imagine a situation where everyone stops believing something (a currency) is not worth anything anymore. But why would somebody believe that nothing except currency is not worth anything?
> But isn't that true of any asset? Go back far enough and they all start at 0 and are worth something today.
Asset, perhaps (there is rightful quibbling as to whether e.g. a bond was ever worth zero; it didn't exist and then came into existence with a positive value, but that's nitpicking). Currency, no. The first U.S. dollars minted were far more valuable than one U.S. dollar today.
no one said the values would no longer matter - they just wouldn’t be furthered by said assets.
you might think that that also suggests that the values no longer matter, but that would be to say that the only way to prove that something matters is with money or money equivalents. to “put your money where your mouth is,” if you will.
It was always thus.
To me, I am worth infinite money. But I accept that to others, I am hardly worth much of anything.
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