First of all there is nothing new or unique about the above. Cypherpunks we’re discussing digital gold for a decade and a half prior to Bitcoin.
Second, during this time and until years after the release of Bitcoin, he has been on record for exploring, pushing, and supporting the cost-value theory of money. This is the erroneous idea that a unit of digital gold should represent directly somehow the cost of production. E.g. a Bitcoin that is twice as hard to mine should be worth twice as much. Nick’s whole theory of digital money (the bitgold in the article) is built upon this. In the years after bitcoin’s release he was fiercely critical of it for this reason. However we now know that rejecting this idea was Satoshi’s key innovation and the reason it works at all.
