Part 14/16:
The Book’s Take on Money's Nature
In their final, rapid-fire segment, the authors offer provocative insights:
Is money a natural or social kind? Social kind. Because humans have created and evolved it, it’s a product of collective agency.
Does Bitcoin exist in physical or mathematical space? Mathematical space. Unlike physical cash, it manifests as abstract data, represented by UTXOs—Unspent Transaction Outputs—embedded within a decentralized ledger.
What lessons can be learned from language evolution? Just as words for “mother” are universal because of evolutionary psychological patterns, money’s features have similarly evolved. Bitcoin, although artificial, exhibits qualities that have naturally emerged as desirable in a good money.