Money – the tokens we hold, the coins, bills and numbers in our bank accounts are actually part of a bigger system - an information system. Specifically, a distributed database that is physically implemented among people. Each one of us is in charge of holding a small part of the data. Each one of us uses our minds to process the information provided by our own money in order to economize. We communicate key information to each other via prices. The interaction between the money and our behavior allows us to spontaneously organize our behaviors to create an efficient economy.
What is the most important attribute of money?
Resistance to Counterfeit!
The value of money does not arise from the substance that it is made of but from the effort required to counterfeit it. Gold coins, Paper Dollars, Electronic Bitcoins are all made of different stuff and yet they are all used as money, and all of them are valuable. Monetary systems made of Gold, Dollars and Bitcoins are very difficult to counterfeit but not impossible. Gold can be mined and minted into duplicate coins. Dollars can be printed by expert counterfeiters and by the Treasury itself; Bitcoins can be “mined” by solving puzzles and double spent. “Perfect” money cannot be counterfeited.