Cryptocurrency and token economics will reinvent value as well as money — Quartz

Throughout human history, we have placed value on all kinds of things: rice, cowries, even cigarettes in prisons. None of these things are “money” in the way we understand fiat currency, such as the bills and coins our governments supply to us. Fiat money only has value because one central authority decided that it will have such value, and then built a system around it.

If fiat currency only holds value because governments have told us it does, then what do we really value? If we unleashed ourselves from federal banks, how would the psychology behind money change?

Many societies have strong emotional ties to physical money and the consumerism that drives its spending. For a whole generation, people were told to deposit their hard-earned cash in banks. In exchange for this favor, the banks reassured them that they’d be set for life because of the interest they’d earn. However, the interest rate has been barely hovering above zero for a long time, and coupled with inflation,…