Cost and Value in a Post-Scarcity World

This article explores the evolving concept of value in an economic environment shaped by post-scarcity dynamics and hyperfinancialization. As physical and digital goods approach zero marginal cost, the traditional price-based valuation models become inadequate, requiring a shift toward understanding value as a function of attention, trust, and opportunity cost. Under that framework, we evaluate the role of some crypto assets -BTC, ETH and select NFTs- as optimal Stores of Value for a new era.

Post-Scarcity Economics and the Revaluation of Value

The global economy appears to be transitioning from a world governed by scarcity to one increasingly shaped by abundance. By the end of this decade, the convergence of artificial general intelligence (AGI), widespread adoption of industrial and consumer robotics, exponential improvements in material sciences and energy production (SMRs, enhanced renewable production and storage, the dream of nuclear fusion), and the maturing infrastructure of the digital economy may permanently unsettle classical economic assumptions about scarcity, utility, and value creation.

Central to this transition is the ontological difference between physical and digital goods. Digital goods - by their very nature - exhibit infinite reproducibility at zero marginal cost. A software application, a digital artwork, or a dataset can be duplicated endlessly without degradation or additional production expense. This radical property disrupts conventional supply-demand dynamics, displacing scarcity as the primary driver of value and replacing it with factors such as attention capture, provenance, symbolic status, or network effects.

While physical goods are still bound by material and energetic constraints, they too will undergo a form of "virtual dematerialization." Robotics and AI will continuously reduce the human labor input required for manufacturing, maintenance, and logistics, asymptotically lowering the cost of goods toward zero - the lower bound being the cost of atoms, not the cost of transforming them. Moreover, most devices and vehicles will increasingly be defined by their software - firmware, operating systems, AI models - rather than their hardware, effectively transforming them into autonomous digital-first products with scalable value layers.

The role of energy in this transformation cannot be overstated. The marginal cost of energy - a critical input in all production processes - will decline thanks to a sum of factors, ranging from better renewable systems and new battery technologies, to the renaissance of nuclear energy (with plans to open more plants than in the last decades, worldwide programs to develop small modular reactors and, potentially, achieving the dream of production-ready nuclear fusion in the next decade. In the longer term, even asteroid mining sci-fi scenarios may become a reality and reduce the cost of raw materials, further eroding the physical boundaries of scarcity.

These technological forces are unfolding within a broader historical-economic context that reinforces the shift toward abundance. In his seminal work, Eight Centuries of Global Real Interest Rates, Paul Schmelzing traces a secular trend of declining real interest rates across the global economy since the 14th century. While this downward slope has been periodically interrupted by crises - such as the 17th-century dislocations or the post-COVID inflationary spike - the long-term trajectory is unmistakable. The cost of capital is trending toward zero.

Low real interest rates have not only become normalized but structurally embedded within the global financial system. As capital becomes cheaper and more abundant, the traditional constraints on investment, consumption, and innovation continue to dissolve. In this context, money itself could begin to approximate a state of abundance - particularly through redistributive mechanisms like Universal Basic Income (UBI), as proposed by Sam Altman and other technologists. Crucially, such a mechanism wouldn't be inflationary when paired with an effectively unlimited supply of most goods and services. 

We can even foresee how the implementation and impact of UBI would differ across countries or jurisdictions. If global productivity trends toward equilibrium - as is likely in a world saturated with automation and artificial intelligence - , and deglobalization/decoupling of supply chains exacerbate, then the main differentiating factor in national economic output (and the capacity to redistribute it) would be:

• Access to raw materials (atoms).
• Access to energy. 

In this regard, countries rich in natural resources and endowed with abundant renewable energy sources + fossil fuels + mineral reserves would hold a structural advantage in sustaining post-scarcity economic models. In other words, Universal Basic Income programs in countries like Canada or Australia would be more sustainable and have stronger purchase power when compared to those in densely populated, resource-scarce countries like most European nations or Singapore.

But does it make sense to discuss differences in the purchasing power of national UBI programs if we're envisioning a new economic paradigm defined by abundance? What does it mean to have greater purchasing power as a Canadian than as a Singaporean, when scarcity is no longer a constraint and there's plenty for everyone?

Well, this "post-scarcity" does not imply the complete elimination of scarcity in all forms. Rather, it calls for a reassessment of what scarcity means in an era of abundant material goods and near-zero marginal costs. As scarcity retreats from the realm of matter, it reemerges in the realms of attention, reputation, network access, and time. These intangible scarcities will increasingly shape the logic of value in the decades to come, especially as the economy becomes not only digitized but hyperfinancialized - a topic we turn to in the following section.

Hyperfinancialization

Over the last several decades, the global economy has undergone a structural transformation. The core engine of value creation has gradually shifted away from the traditional production of goods and services toward financial markets, instruments, and arbitrage. This process - commonly referred to as financialization - has not only changed how wealth is generated but also how it is preserved, distributed, and accessed.

In the immediate post–World War II era, the global economy was largely shaped by Keynesian frameworks and tightly regulated financial systems. Finance, at the time, was the lubricant of production - it served the "real" economy. But from the 1970s onward, with the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system, the oil crises, and the deregulation waves of the Reagan-Thatcher era, a shift began. Monetary policy regimes prioritized low inflation and capital mobility, and financial markets began to eclipse other sectors in importance.

This period also saw a fundamental shift from bank-based financial systems - where credit was largely intermediated through domestic banking institutions - to market-based financial systems, where companies and governments increasingly accessed capital directly via credit markets and securities. Liberalization, securitization, and innovation in derivative products enabled capital to flow faster, further, and more flexibly across borders. The rise of offshore markets, including the eurodollar system, helped financial capital escape national monetary constraints, effectively creating a parallel, extraterritorial financial layer that continues to influence global liquidity and interest rate transmission.

Schmelzing's research, which traces real interest rate trends over the last seven centuries, shows a secular decline in the cost of money since the 1300s. Though punctuated by episodic crises (such as the 17th-century monetary disruptions or today's post-pandemic inflation shock), this decline has supported the ongoing expansion of leverage and asset valuation - a fertile ground for financialization. This long-term downward trend in real interest rates, driven by rising capital accumulation and declining risk premiums, has made debt financing attractive and, in many cases, effectively "free." It has also made the future perpetually cheap - an invitation to speculate. One of the clearest signs of hyperfinancialization is the increased participation of economic agents in financial markets. Today, over 60% of Americans own stocks. Governments manage their liabilities through sophisticated financial engineering. Corporations issue debt to fund share buybacks. Pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, and individual retail investors all co-exist in a tightly woven ecosystem of perpetual capital movement. The logic of finance - liquidity, arbitrage, yield - has permeated all layers of economic life.

We are now entering what could be considered the ultimate phase of this evolution: the on-chain economy. Enabled by blockchain technology, this emerging financial layer represents a paradigm shift. Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols like Aave or Uniswap offer lending, trading, and yield-generating functionalities that are programmable, permissionless, and borderless. Digital assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum serve as globally liquid stores of value, while NFTs introduce financial characteristics to previously illiquid domains like art, music, and culture. Meanwhile, Real World Assets (RWAs) - physical assets such as real estate, carbon credits, or invoices - are increasingly being tokenized, creating 24/7 liquid markets for what were once static and opaque forms of capital. In this context, everything becomes financialized. Not merely in the sense that value is represented in market terms, but in the deeper sense that every asset can now be collateralized, fractionalized, traded, and speculated upon. The boundaries between consumption and investment, between ownership and access, dissolve. As AI and robotics usher in post-scarcity production regimes, these financial layers - programmable, decentralized, liquid - become the primary terrain for economic interaction. Hyperfinancialization is no longer a tendency. It is the default operating system of the digital, post-scarce economy.

Economic Relations in a Hyperfinancialized Post-Scarcity World

In a post-scarcity economy, the marginal cost of goods and services trends asymptotically toward zero, though it may never reach absolute zero due to residual material constraints and the ephemeral nature of certain consumables. This new reality transforms the way we understand economic decision-making: with abundance nearly guaranteed, the principal economic cost for individuals becomes one of opportunity.

As access to most goods and services becomes frictionless (and once accessed tradable), the consumer begins to resemble a portfolio manager, constantly assessing where to allocate their finite attention, time, and capital in highly liquid, 24/7 markets. Whether acquiring a good, accessing a service (increasingly rendered by robots or autonomous agents), or purchasing a right - these decisions are no longer constrained by price in the traditional sense, but by what must be foregone instead. This shift reflects the dominance of opportunity cost over monetary cost in a world of abundance.

This dynamic is further amplified by ongoing hyperfinancialization, the digitization of the global economy, and the proliferation of blockchain-based markets. These on-chain economies, powered by decentralized finance (DeFi), tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), and liquid markets for everything from NFTs to synthetic derivatives, allow for a radical reconfiguration of how and where economic interactions occur. The line between consumption and investment blurs: any digital asset, service, or experience can now be acquired, tokenized, resold, or fractionally owned. The market becomes the default interface for all economic activity.

In such an environment, two concepts become fundamental in modeling economic behavior: opportunity cost and attention.

Opportunity Cost Becomes Primary

Even in a world of abundance, human beings remain constrained by their cognitive and temporal bandwidth. One cannot own or consume everything at once. The act of choosing - even in a market of money abundance if we accept the possibility of UBI-like instruments and a secular decline in the cost of money as suggested by Schmelzing - imposes a cost. This cost is no longer just denominated in fiat or energy, but in what else could have been chosen. The utility of any transaction becomes relative to the multitude of alternatives available at any given moment, measured in real-time via global liquid markets.

Imagine an advanced barter system, enabled by the convergence of blockchain, artificial intelligence, and robotic logistics. In such a system, the real-time value of everything - from physical objects to digital rights - is continuously priced, quoted, and made instantly exchangeable. The infrastructure to support this already exists in nascent form: oracles feed decentralized protocols with up-to-date data; AI-driven agents optimize consumption and production; tokenization turns rights and assets into liquid instruments.

In this landscape, economic decision-making becomes less about affording something and more about whether it is the best use of one's capital, time, or focus relative to the opportunity set.

Attention as the Scarce Commodity

Alongside opportunity cost, attention becomes the second foundational pillar of economic behavior in a post-scarcity world. Defined as the capacity to mobilize human desire - whether for consumption, ownership, or symbolic association - attention is the filter through which abundance must pass to acquire meaning and value. In a reality saturated with goods, services, and financial assets of all types, attention becomes the decisive force that determines what gets seen, desired, and ultimately transacted.

Unlike opportunity cost, which is rooted in economic rationality, attention is initially triggered by desire - often impulsive, instinctive, and emotionally charged. Desire is volatile and immediate, shaped by subjective impulses and cultural context. However, for desire to convert into sustained value, it must be anchored in trust - a more deliberate and objective calculation.

Trust, in this context, is a belief that arises not from institutional guarantees, but from an ongoing evaluation of an asset's cost-to-value ratio. This evaluation depends on multiple factors: historical performance, social consensus, the perceived credibility of a project or network, and expectations about future utility or appreciation. Importantly, this kind of economic reasoning is no longer reserved for professionals; it becomes ubiquitous in a world where individuals no longer work for subsistence but instead navigate a fluid market of options. Information, distilled through increasingly transparent and real-time markets, is omnipresent and accessible, enabling the average participant to act with a level of financial awareness that was once reserved for a minority.

In this context, both attention and opportunity cost help us understand the transformation of economic value in a hyperliquid, hyperfinancialized system. Value is no longer embedded in the intrinsic properties of a good or its production cost - it is a function of attention retained over time, which itself is a product of two factors:

• The initial ability to mobilize desire, and
• The long-term ability to sustain that desire through trust.

In a system where the transactional speed and liquidity of goods and services approaches near-frictionless levels - enabled by real-time tokenized markets and algorithmic pricing - the cost of any economic decision is best expressed as a dual function:

Real Cost = (Nominal Price → asymptotically approaching zero) + Opportunity Cost

This recalibration of cost reflects the reality that, while monetary prices decline, the trade-offs between competing options become sharper. As such, value in the post-scarcity paradigm is inseparable from the asset's ability to capture and hold attention, overcoming the gravitational pull of countless alternatives.

Value Accrual in a Post-Scarcity Economy

Building on these premises, we can begin to outline what kinds of assets and goods are capable of accumulating value in a world defined by radical abundance and non-existent transaction friction. In such a system, most goods are easily produced, infinitely replicable, and instantly tradable - with negligible spreads, no intermediaries, high liquidity and super efficient logistics. The very qualities that once conferred value - difficulty of access, exclusivity, production cost - are increasingly commoditized. What remains scarce, and thus valuable, is the capacity to capture attention and retain it over time, creating a perceived opportunity cost that justifies ownership or continued engagement.

Two key features emerge as the defining traits of value-accruing assets in this new paradigm:

1. Scarcity 2.0 (Natural or Engineered)

In a world where everything can be reproduced at near-zero cost, true scarcity - whether physical, social, or technical - becomes immensely valuable. Some assets are naturally scarce and highly desired due to their intrinsic and non-fungible properties: a beachfront property in a pristine location, a penthouse on New York's Fifth Avenue, or a rare mineral resource. These are non-commoditizable and tied to physical constraints or unique contextual value.

But scarcity can also be artificially enforced or engineered through: Individual decisions - for example, an artist producing a limited number of paintings, or an artisan crafting exclusive, low-supply Oxford shoes to maintain high market value.

Collective coordination tools combined with incentive mechanisms - as in the case of crypto networks and assets, which derive part of their value from consensus-based constraints that are autonomously enforced via code. This second category will become increasingly important in a post-scarcity economy, where attention and trust are the key factors determining value. Crypto protocols and assets are programmable, autonomous, and resistant to unilateral supply expansion. This generates a perception of integrity and reliability - a resistance to discretionary human intervention - that will be crucial for establishing long-term trust.

In both cases, scarcity functions not merely as a supply constraint, but as a signal of uniqueness and potential appreciation, appealing to both emotional desire and rational expectation.

2. Status

Closely related to scarcity is the ability to confer status. In a world of overabundance, where access is a less dramatic marker of wealth or privilege, differentiation adopts new shapes and forms. Assets that enable the holder to signal belonging, taste, or superiority take on added value - not mainly because of their utility, but because of what they represent.

These can be physical - like fine art, luxury real estate, or rare collectibles - or digital, such as high-value NFTs. Non Fungible Tokens that are tied to prominent artists, elite social communities, or cultural movements act as identity primitives, giving owners not just a digital collectible, but a membership badge within a specific tribe. As Derek Edwards has pointed out many times, these NFTs are networked digital objects with few dependencies -i.e. they "enjoy a large attention, are provably scarce, highly durable and have few external dependencies to maintain value over long periods of time", acting as de facto stores of value.

Status, then, is no longer limited to luxury - it is now programmable, displayable, and financialized, operating on the same infrastructure as the rest of the economy.

3. Yield-Generating and Collateral Capacity

Yield-bearing assets - those that offer returns through staking, royalties, protocol fees, or productivity - become especially attractive in a world where baseline needs are largely met, goods and services approach zero marginal cost, and economic decision-making increasingly mirrors that of a portfolio manager. The ability of such assets to compound value over time aligns perfectly with the rise of the consumer-investor hybrid, whose choices reflect not just desire but the optimization of capital across a broader opportunity set.

Equally important is an asset's capacity to serve as trusted collateral. Even if we accept Schmelzing's thesis of a secular decline in the cost of money and interest rates, periods of crisis or revaluation - such as the 17th-century financial collapse or the post-COVID inflationary shock - reaffirm the enduring importance of credible, non-depreciating collateral. Assets trusted as collateral in financial arrangements gain added desirability and resilience, reinforcing both trust and sustained attention.

In this paradigm, yield and collateral capacity act as amplifiers of trust. They offer objective, market-based justification for allocating value - especially in a system where subjective desire alone is no longer sufficient to sustain long-term attention. The result is a class of assets that are not only attractive but useful, anchored in ongoing function, market relevance, and systemic integration.

In a post-scarcity system, value accrues to assets that can justify their share of attention. The combination of capturing desire and maintaining trust allows certain goods to stand out amid a sea of equivalents. These assets aren't diminished by abundance - they're elevated by it - precisely because they resist commodification and offer meaning, identity, or yield in a world where everything else is free. Some cryptoassets - like BTC, ETH, and select NFTs - appear to be the best-positioned to thrive under such conditions. They deserve a closer look, which I'll explore in my next article.