Bitcoin makes the cost of transportation and validation negligible without adding any counterparty risk to the system.
Validation, yes. Transportation, no.
The cost of transportation is paid via proof-of-work mining — inflation (99%) and fees (1%) — and this cost is definitely not negligible. It’s currently $6.5 billion per year, and that level of spending is nowhere near sufficient to protect the network in a Bitcoin Standard future.
Proof-of-work mining is not well understood by economists, including Saifedean Ammous, who mistakenly claims:
“If the recipient is willing to wait for six confirmations, the probability of an attack succeeding shrinks infinitely low.” — The Bitcoin Standard
More here:
