Cryptocurrency as Money — Store of Value or Medium of Exchange?

**The following article was written by Kristoffer Mousten Hansen and Karras Lambert and printed on September 28, 2022. Cryptocurrency as Money — Store of Value or Medium of Exchange? was initially printed on mises.org. The opinions expressed on this article are the authors’ personal. Bitcoin.com just isn’t liable for or responsible for any opinions, content material, accuracy or high quality throughout the op-ed.**


Cryptocurrency fanatics usually have an ideal appreciation for the Austrian college of economics. This is comprehensible since Austrian economists have all the time argued for the advantage of privately produced cash exterior authorities management. Unfortunately, an inaccurate understanding of the event and capabilities of cash has emerged and develop into more and more dominant amongst a minimum of some proponents of bitcoin — a story that’s at odds with the fundamentals of Austrian financial concept.

In this view, which might maybe be traced to Nick Szabo’s essay emphasizing collectibles, the first and predominant operate of cash is as a “retailer of worth,” or this operate is on par with the medium-of-exchange operate. According to this view, a commodity should first “transmit worth” over time. It can then be used as a medium of trade earlier than lastly turning into established as a unit of account.

This account will get the emergence and performance of cash backwards: the first and certainly sole important operate of cash is as a medium of trade. Its standing as a “retailer of worth” (extra on this phrase beneath) is incidental, whereas the operate of unit of account is nonessential, as there have been many cash commodities all through historical past that have been by no means used as models of account.

The Austrian custom, from Carl Menger to Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, has all the time insisted that cash is in essence a medium of trade, with every other so-called capabilities being incidental and, within the case of “retailer of worth,” metaphorical. In what follows, we clarify this place.

On Value

To perceive the character of cash, we first evaluation the idea of worth. Austrians have all the time emphasised the subjective nature of worth. It just isn’t one thing intrinsic to items however all the time relative to the performing particular person and his potential decisions. At the second of selection, he confers worth on an object by preferring it to different objects. An object could be valued both for its usefulness in straight attaining the performing particular person’s finish (as a client good), for aiding the manufacturing of client items (as a producer good), or as a medium of trade.

The key level is that worth is a subjective notion and is just significant in a selection state of affairs. Subjective worth can’t be transmitted throughout time, and subsequently there is no such thing as a such factor as a “retailer of worth” in a literal sense. A factor can in fact be saved for later use, however its worth can’t be saved in the identical method that its bodily integrity could be preserved. At any given time, nevertheless, subjective worth performs the central function within the formation of market trade charges, i.e., costs.

An trade solely ever takes place when the exchanging events each choose what the opposite has greater than what they offer up in return. In a financial financial system, most exchanges are between cash and nonmoney items and providers, however the identical precept of reverse choice rankings holds true: the vendor of a superb prefers the sum of cash he receives to the great and the customer prefers the great to the sum of cash he should give up for it.

In a society with persistently repeated exchanges, an built-in system of market costs is established. A factor’s market worth is then the identical as its market worth. To name one thing a “retailer of worth” is mostly a solution to say that its market worth is predicted to stay the identical or improve over time. The distinction between cash and different items is that the market worth of cash can’t be expressed as a single worth however have to be expressed as a complete vary of costs. This vary of costs is the buying energy of cash. When we communicate of cash as a retailer of worth, we actually imply that we count on it to have a steady or rising buying energy with respect to all different items.

On Money

A key argument of the “retailer of worth” proponents is that cash is the great that greatest served as a retailer of worth and subsequently steadily emerged as the most typical medium of trade. This concept has little or no to do with Menger’s account of the origin of cash. It just isn’t the most effective retailer of worth that emerges as cash however probably the most marketable good.

The motion from direct to oblique trade develops as market actors uncover that items differ in how broadly demanded they’re and start to trade their items for extra broadly demanded — extra marketable — items as a substitute of partaking in direct barter. A number of items steadily develop into dominant media of trade primarily based on the traits that make them helpful for this objective: excessive worth per unit weight/quantity, divisibility, sturdiness, transportability. The valuable metals have been till the 20th century used as cash exactly as a result of their qualities made them probably the most appropriate commodities for the aim.

Notice that there’s been no point out of cash being a retailer of worth on this dialogue of Menger’s concept of cash to this point. In reality, he explicitly argued that it was unsuitable to attribute to cash qua cash the operate of retailer of worth:

But the notion that attributes to cash as such the operate of additionally transferring ‘values’ from the current into the longer term have to be designated as inaccurate. Although metallic cash, due to its sturdiness and low value of preservation, is likely appropriate for this objective additionally, it’s nonetheless clear that different commodities are nonetheless higher suited to it. Indeed, expertise teaches that wherever much less simply preserved items somewhat than the valuable metals have attained money-character, they ordinarily serve for functions of circulation, however not for the preservation of ‘values.’

That the financial metals are additionally good shops of worth is just an unintentional characteristic; it’s not important to their financial operate. Qualities that make a commodity a so-called retailer of worth are prone to additionally make it a superb medium of trade. Thus, sturdiness is vital for any financial commodity, and it’s clearly important for something to be a “retailer of worth” for any size of time.

In reality, as Mises explained, the operate of retailer of worth, insofar as it may be stated to exist for a sure cash commodity, is embedded within the commodity’s main operate as a medium of trade: “Money is the factor which serves as the widely accepted and generally used medium of trade. This is its solely operate. All the opposite capabilities which individuals ascribe to cash are merely specific facets of its main and sole operate, that of a medium of trade.”

We needn’t get right into a deeper dialogue of the demand for cash — it’s apparent, as Mises goes on to say within the chapter simply cited, that individuals preserve a reserve of cash, and that every one cash is all the time held by somebody someplace. This too, nevertheless, doesn’t point out that cash essentially serves as a “retailer of worth.” As William H. Hutt defined in a classic article (later elaborated by Hans-Hermann Hoppe), cash’s use in an individual’s money stability is as a reserve of buying energy towards unexpected contingencies.

We preserve money readily available for emergencies or to avail ourselves of unexpected worthwhile alternatives. But even dangerous cash — i.e., cash declining in buying energy and which subsequently can’t meaningfully be stated to be a “retailer of worth” — serves this objective. Holding cash merely means holding on to it till the day within the unsure future if you count on it is possible for you to to trade it for one thing you worth extra.

Final Thoughts

Bitcoin fanatics who align with the Austrian college of Menger, Mises, and Rothbard err once they ascribe basic significance to the “retailer of worth” operate of cash on the expense of the “medium of trade” operate, the latter of which is the one important facet of cash. Likewise, downplaying the significance of lively utilization of cryptocurrency, which additionally entails elevated enterprise demand, in favor of a “HODL endlessly” mentality, goes towards Mises’s recognition that “enterprise utilization alone can remodel a commodity into a typical medium of trade.”

What are your ideas on cryptocurrency as cash and the frequent store-of-value vs. medium-of-exchange debate? Be positive to tell us within the feedback part beneath.

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