Latinum is only valuable outside of the Federation, where societies are not post-scarcity.
Now, before you argue that there are no material conditions demanding scarcity in (some of) them, I’ll add that artificial scarcity is scarcity nonetheless.
In societies outside the Federation, where they don’t have replicators, things have value due to being able to use them for other purposes. Latinum has never been shown to be used for any other purpose except to trade. Its not clear why a useless material is considered valuable, except for the fact that its rare.
Latinum is only valuable outside of the Federation, where societies are not post-scarcity.
Now, before you argue that there are no material conditions demanding scarcity in (some of) them, I’ll add that artificial scarcity is scarcity nonetheless.
In societies outside the Federation, where they don’t have replicators, things have value due to being able to use them for other purposes. Latinum has never been shown to be used for any other purpose except to trade. Its not clear why a useless material is considered valuable, except for the fact that its rare.
Says a huh-man that uses paper to trade…
That paper is at least backed by the GDP of my country.