Energy is not being exchanged for "virtual value", but rather "shared belief".
Wars have been fought to force shared beliefs. It's fairly common in history for "real world resources" to be permanently burned in order to create a shared belief system in order to facilitate trade. For example, the Roman Empire or any other empire.
I'd rather use electrons to create shared belief than bullets and bombs.
Virtual value/shared belief are the same thing. The fact remains we are destroying something of utilitarian value to create something that has no utility past being tradable and valuable because people follow trends
Shared beliefs absolutely have intrinsic value. Our ability to have this discussion in English over devices connected to a common communication platform is sufficient proof of that.
Wars have been fought to force shared beliefs. It's fairly common in history for "real world resources" to be permanently burned in order to create a shared belief system in order to facilitate trade. For example, the Roman Empire or any other empire.
I'd rather use electrons to create shared belief than bullets and bombs.