Scarcity creates an illusion of value "at rest". Currencies aren't very useful "at rest", though. (As entertaining as it is to imagine to go diving into a Bank Vault Scrooge McDuck-style, it isn't very practical in reality.) It's in how they flow that inter-personal value happens. I feel like one of these days we'll truly discover an economic calculus based on the second and third derivatives of "value", and maybe scarcity is holding us back. (I often use an electrical circuit analogy. Our conception of wealth is "instantaneous voltage", and while high potential voltage sometimes has its uses in some types of circuits, it's the wattage/amperage that does real work over time.)