On Terminating Bitcoin's Violation of Mises Regression Theorem With Games as Pre‐Market Commodity Valuators

Crypto-Economics On Bitcoin Violating Mises Regression Theorem

Eric Voskuil comes to the same conclusion we do in regard to Mises Regression theorem:

The Regression Theorem relies on the assumption that the first people to value something as a money must do so based on a memory of its prior use value, with the thing eventually obtaining barter utility and finally monetary value.

No good can be employed for the function of a medium of exchange which at the very beginning of its use for this purpose did not have exchange value on account of other employments.

Ludwig Von Mises: Human Action

Notice that the theory does not merely attempt to explain the origin of the money concept, but of anything that can be a money. In other words, if a good does not follow this progression, it is not money.

Voskuil makes a deconstruction on a Mises Institute article here which we feel has near zero complexity distance with ours of the same point (that we agree you can’t re-solve Bitcoin and Mises regression theorem by showing Bitcoin is anticipated to be a money):

Given a preexisting concept of money, it has been suggested that anticipation of being a money is sufficient to satisfy the theorem. In other words the money does not need to follow the progression in actual practice. In this case, given a preexisting concept of money, anything can begin as money. This interpretation renders the theorem tautological - anything that people value as money can be money. In other words, it reduces to subjective first value.

Voskuil also writes in accordance with our notes on the inconsistency of supporting praxeological based arguments with empirical evidence:

Yet the rational economic theory on which it is based, and the theorem itself, explicitly reject empiricism.

Lastly Voskuil notes of Satoshi of which we agree and he cites Satoshi’s response to the does Bitcoin violate Mises thread:

It can clearly be observed that Satoshi intended to create a money, for its first use as money.

On Pre-Market Commodities and Voskuil's Regression Problem

Voskuil also makes a point about the idea of a commodity in which humans have not yet given it a value.

The theorem fails to terminate its regression by not explaining how a person comes to value something for its original utility.

We leave it to the Miseans to defend whether or not the Austrian school explains how an object comes to have value in the first place, before a human might know how it is useful. But we now open the dialogue about the concept of pre-markets.

On Games and Selection of Shells In Premarkets

Here we are thinking about Satoshi Nakamoto’s reply to the question of whether or not Bitcoin violates Mises regression Theorem:

Maybe it could get an initial value circularly as you've suggested, by people foreseeing its potential usefulness for exchange. (I would definitely want some) Maybe collectors, any random reason could spark it.

From our view it seems possible and likely that pre-market commodities were ordered not by the saleability but by their game-worthy ness.

As a crude example, children that stayed at home in a hunt-gather situation, played with shells discarded from eating. The shells would be byproduct, made thus with no cost in that sense, and produced but not at all for a market value.

The value they will incur would come out of the bargaining gauntlet the games provided.

Relinquishing the Origins of Money to Anthropology etc.

This suggestion would be relieving to the anthropologist we believe. Firstly it's not an argument based on that, but something to look for. It relieves any tensions from past economic theories that are empirically or praxeological based.

It extends Szabo slightly to suggest that proto-money could quite easily have come from INTRA-kin behavior before intra-kin etc.

On the Origins of the Instinct to Play Games and Naturally Value Certain Objects

It wouldn’t be hard to argue games are fundamental to our social evolution. Our early work ‘theWealthofChips’ is a superficial dive into the subject. Nonetheless, it’s not for this essay to show but rather to give as a praxeological explanation as to how objects with no subjective value might become ordered by value (but far more than just by an individual's acute and present moment preferences) before they are brought to a market.

On the Archeological Test of our Theory

The suggestion in times when something like shells arose to be a money they weren't necessarily ordered by scarcity (which is somewhat an absurdity) but chosen by game rules and customs not explainable by scarcity properties or other monetary properties.

On Games as a Pre-Money Non-Monetary Usefulness For Bitcoin

Although it's not necessary for us, we feel it might be interesting for Miseans to revisit the history of Bitcoin and games it facilitated and with respect to similar observations of money of the past (ie Satoshi Dice).

On The Wrapping of Voskuil of a Deconstruction of Mises

Our argument doesn't rely on whether or not Mises explained how non-valued commodities first get their value. We feel it was probably the purpose of explaining human action, nevertheless, we now defer any further explanation of the origin of money to archaeology and anthropology.