Over the past decade or so, we have witnessed the emergence of entirely new kinds of assets that have come to hold enormous value. Bitcoin is perhaps the clearest example. It first appeared as a form of electronic money that allowed individuals to transfer value directly to one another without relying on a central authority. But as its price rose, its role gradually began to change.
From a means of payment to an object of speculation. From speculation to investment. And today, it is often described as “digital gold” or a “store of value.” This is not unique to Bitcoin. Crypto assets, NFTs, and various kinds of tokens have made it possible to create entirely new forms of value in the digital world by engineering scarcity itself.
But if artificial intelligence and robotics continue to advance in the direction many now expect, will this idea of turning scarcity itself into value continue to work in the same way?
From “Currency” to “Asset” Through Rising Value
One of the most interesting things about Bitcoin is that its technical utility and its market value are not necessarily proportional. The ability to transfer value globally without a central authority was unquestionably a major technological innovation. But today, if we look only at everyday digital payments, Bitcoin is not necessarily the easiest option to use.
When transaction fees, settlement speed, and price volatility are taken into account, stablecoins such as USDT and USDC are often more practical. If something costs $100, you can simply pay 100 USDT. With Bitcoin, by contrast, its value against the dollar is constantly changing.
In other words, the growth of the crypto economy and the emergence of Bitcoin as a mainstream currency are not the same thing.
A more natural division of roles in the future may be:
Stablecoins = digital money
Blockchain = settlement infrastructure
Bitcoin = scarce digital asset
And yet Bitcoin still carries enormous market value. That is because the center of its value proposition has shifted away from convenience as a payment method and toward scarcity, value preservation, and expectations of future demand.
People no longer hold it simply because it is useful. They hold it because they expect others to continue recognizing its value in the future. In that sense, Bitcoin has evolved into a different kind of asset.
Creating Scarcity in the Digital World
Bitcoin’s maximum supply is fixed at 21 million BTC. In addition, Bitcoin whose private keys are permanently lost effectively becomes unusable forever, meaning that the amount actually available is smaller than the theoretical maximum.
This gives Bitcoin a particularly strong form of scarcity. Even if demand increases, supply cannot easily be expanded. That creates a cycle:
Rising demand → higher prices → new investment inflows → expectations of further price increases.
And if holders expect Bitcoin to appreciate even more in the future, they become less willing to spend it. Holding it becomes more attractive than using it today.
This creates another self-reinforcing structure:
Expected price appreciation → long-term holding → less supply available to the market → stronger scarcity.
At this point, Bitcoin begins to behave less like an everyday currency and more like gold or fine art.
In practice, large corporate holdings, Bitcoin inflows into ETFs, and an increase in long-term holders are often treated by markets as positive signals. But with an ordinary currency, an increase in the amount that nobody uses and simply stores away would not normally be considered a sign of monetary success.
This suggests that Bitcoin has already shifted away from its original role as electronic money toward something closer to an asset that is primarily held.
Scarcity Does Not Guarantee Value
Of course, Bitcoin does not have value simply because “only 21 million can ever exist.”
Its system depends on cryptography, mining, communications networks, software, economic incentive structures, and agreement among participants.
It cannot be said that technical vulnerabilities will never emerge. Future quantum computing could affect cryptographic assumptions. Mining power could become concentrated. Software can contain bugs. Communications networks can be attacked.
If a serious problem occurs, developers, miners, exchanges, users, and other participants may ultimately have to agree to adopt a new system or protocol.
Bitcoin’s value therefore depends not only on mathematical scarcity, but also on social confidence that this entire system will continue to function in the future.
The same is true economically.
Stocks are backed by corporate earnings. Bonds pay interest. Real estate can generate rent. Bitcoin does not produce an equivalent stream of ongoing income.
As a result, it is impossible to calculate in the same way we might value a company whether $100,000 is too expensive or $20,000 is too cheap.
Ultimately, its price is supported by the belief that people will continue to regard it as valuable in the future.
This is not unique to Bitcoin. It is a broader characteristic of many digital assets whose prices are shaped primarily by speculation and investment demand.
Why Do Humans Store Value?
Why do humans hold assets in the first place?
One major reason is to move purchasing power from the present into the future.
Instead of spending everything we earn today, we convert part of our income into cash, equities, bonds, real estate, gold, Bitcoin, and other assets.
We do this because the future is uncertain.
Retirement. Unemployment. Illness. Housing. Education. Food. Energy.
We preserve purchasing power today so that we can obtain the goods and services we may need later.
In other words, the very idea of a “store of value” rests on the assumption that scarcity will still exist in the future.
The Universal High Income Hypothesis
This is where the idea of “Universal High Income,” discussed by Elon Musk and others in the context of artificial intelligence and robotics, becomes particularly interesting.
It is somewhat different from a conventional universal basic income. The idea is that AI and robots could produce enormous quantities of goods and services on behalf of humans, dramatically increasing the productive capacity of society itself.
AI writes software. Robots operate factories. Autonomous vehicles handle logistics. Robots work in agriculture and construction. AI and robotics make healthcare more efficient. Energy production becomes increasingly automated.
If this progresses far enough, human labor itself may no longer be the primary constraint on production.
At that point, the key issue would no longer be simply “giving everyone a large amount of money.”
If goods and services themselves become extremely inexpensive, then required income falls even faster than income rises.
Beyond Universal High Income may lie an economy defined by abundance.
Abundance Changes the Meaning of “Store of Value”
Suppose artificial intelligence and robotics dramatically reduce the cost of food, energy, transportation, manufacturing, software, healthcare, and other essential goods and services.
The need for people to accumulate large amounts of assets in order to secure their future would also decline.
Today, the basic structure looks like this:
Work → earn income → save → invest → consume in the future.
But if the future instead looks like:
AI and robotics → massive production capacity → dramatically cheaper goods and services,
then the amount of savings required to prepare for the future becomes smaller.
And as the need for savings declines, demand for stores of value themselves may also change.
This would affect not only Bitcoin, but also gold, cash, bonds, pensions, and many other assets whose purpose is to transfer purchasing power from the present into the future.
That raises a more fundamental question for digital assets:
Can artificially created scarcity retain the same value in a world of overwhelming abundance?
Scarcity Will Not Disappear Entirely
Of course, no matter how advanced artificial intelligence becomes, not every form of scarcity will disappear.
Specific pieces of land. Natural resources. Energy infrastructure. Computing resources. Rare natural environments. Original works of art. Human attention and time. Social status and political influence.
All of these remain subject to physical or social constraints.
AI may be able to build millions of houses, but it cannot reproduce a specific location.
What AI is most likely to reduce is the scarcity of things that can be mass-produced.
What remains are things that are physically, geographically, or socially difficult or impossible to reproduce.
If that happens, the things people choose as stores of value may change as well.
Assets based on artificially engineered scarcity in the digital world may become relatively less important than things whose scarcity is rooted in the real world.
From Scarcity to Abundance
Bitcoin is highly symbolic.
It introduced provable scarcity into a digital world where information had previously been almost infinitely reproducible. From that innovation, an enormous market for digital assets emerged.
Artificial intelligence and robotics, however, appear to be moving in the opposite direction.
Digital assets create scarcity.
Artificial intelligence and robotics reduce scarcity.
In today’s investment world, predicting what will become scarce in the future can create enormous value. That is why people accumulate Bitcoin, gold, real estate, natural resources, and other scarce assets.
But if an economy of abundance driven by AI truly emerges, the central question may begin to change.
Not:
“What will rise in price?”
But:
“What will remain scarce until the very end?”
And perhaps beyond that:
“How much will ownership of scarce things matter at all?”
That question may ultimately matter more than predicting the future price of Bitcoin.
If artificial intelligence replaces a large share of human labor, Universal High Income becomes viable, and essential goods and services become abundant enough that most people no longer need to spend much of their lives accumulating money and assets, the meaning of saving itself begins to change.
Digital assets would not necessarily become worthless in such a world.
But the current assumption that “something is scarce, therefore I should hold it for the future” may no longer be as absolute as it is today.
Bitcoin came to symbolize an era in which scarcity could be engineered in the digital world. Artificial intelligence may be pointing toward the opposite possibility.
From an age of scarcity to an age of abundance.
If that transition truly happens, it will not only change the price of Bitcoin and other digital assets.
It may change the meaning of assets, savings, investment, labor, and ultimately the very act of preserving value for the future.