Bitcoin Forum

Hi all,

Modern biology has been getting close to solving the mystery of money ever since Dawkins attempted a definition in 'The selfish gene'. By clarifying some basic conceptual issues, this research article defines Bitcoin as the first form of digital money. Fiat 'money' and any coin that prioritises exchange over value is defined as credit. This sorts out the confusion with ideas like 'credit-money or 'money is debt' or 'money comes from a commodity'... In this way, the article solves the recent debate between David Graeber and the Austrian School. I hope it is useful.

https://www.academia.edu/40138316/Money_is_a_token_of_cooperation_The_biology_of_indirect_exchanges  (https://www.academia.edu/40138316/Money_is_a_token_of_cooperation_The_biology_of_indirect_exchanges)

What this is missing out is the fact that there are now digital currencies of nations as well, for example petro which is still digital currency but at the same time based on a nations resources so it can always be combined.

Bitcoin was never the first digital currency, it was only the first one that seen this much adoption, there was e-money type of deals before that never got too big because they never had blockchain behind it, what made bitcoin original and unique was the blockchain, otherwise digital currency has been as old as internet itself, even data was seen as money at one point and exchanged for fiat currency to be used. Hence there are other smaller details that should be invested some research into before this theory could be 100% done with.

I'm a biologist who specializes on genes myself, and yes, we do believe that there is this certain gene that controls our greed, selfishness and lust for money and power that has been the cause of war since the beginning of human civilization. I would be keen to take part on this research and place my inputs myself, and one facet of this study only lingers around money and not even with power. Thanks for an interesting reading.

What you missing is the fact to realize difference between crypto currencies and fiat currencies. Digital is just expression, fiat is digital long before bitcoin, people use paying cards for decades. Where is the difference? Of course in what kind of principles currency is using for generation, distribution and transactions. Bitcoin is the first crypto-digital-currency build on blockchain technology.

That is more or less the idea, but the article explains that some cryptocurrencies (like Bitcoin) should be called digital money. In the same way, gold is money, but a gold coin with a nominal value should be called credit. Here is an excerpt:

'Created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin is commonly called a decentralised digital currency. However, according to the present definition of money, Bitcoin is simply the first form of digital money, as opposed to credit that has been issued digitally. Both digital credit and digital money are accounting ledgers that are stored in networks of computers. In the case of credit, the network is centralised, meaning that the authenticity of the ledger is set by a single authority. This is typically a nation-state that decides what credit belongs to whom and how much of it can there be in circulation. By contrast, the authenticity of the Bitcoin ledger is decided by a cooperative process called proof-of-work [36]. Any computer that is connected to the internet is free to participate in the process by adhering to a certain protocol. The protocol rewards those ‘mining’ computers with new coins at a decreasing rate that mimics the scarcity of gold. At root, however, the proof-of-work is a mathematical solution to the problem of coordinating different computers on the internet, in the same way as money in general is a solution to the problem of coordinating different people in nature.'

That's what most people fail to take into account

But the crypto aspect in cryptocurrencies is just a technical peculiarity, not a defining feature, so depending on your definition of "crypto", fiat money can also by considered "crypto" as cryptography is definitely involved somewhere in the modern fiat too. In this way, the difference between fiat and cryptocurrencies lies elsewhere. If you ask me, the great divide is in who controls the money. With cryptocurrencies, there is no central entity or agency while with fiat it is the government or whoever controls it from behind the scenes (power elites, masons, aliens, etc)

I guess Cryptocurrency is digital currency. Fiat currency exist in digital form too, so it definitely qualifies as digital currency...maybe it should be considered partly digital.
Some websites tend to define digital currency as currency that exist purely in digital form. I wonder why this is so.

Cryptocurrency is an ambiguous term because 1) the word 'currency' means a medium of exchange within a country or other normative context (from Middle English: curraunt, 'in circulation'), and 2) you can use cryptography for anything you like, including credit 'money' that is nothing like Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is not a currency because it exists in the lawlessness of the internet, nor does cryptography alone provide its monetary qualities (as I explained in the excerpt above).

So, we are left with the word money, which can refer to commodities and collectibles that are not associated with any authority (e.g. precious metals, cigarettes, wampum), or, again, to currency or credit. Clearly, if we want to understand these things, the meaning of the words must be sorted. The article proposes that we reserve the word money for commodities and collectibles (Bitcoin is a digital collectible); and it does so on the basis of the biological study of sociality and exchanges.

I really recommend you read the article. You will learn about modern debates in biology, the history and psychology of money, the nature of human societies, etc.

The theories of money you mention cannot be great because 1) they contradict each other, and 2) they do not communicate with biology.

As I mentioned, this theory explains the debate between David Graeber's anthropological narrative on the origins of money (book: Debt: The first 5000 years) and the classical economic narrative that money originated through barter.

Saying that the concept of money is 'widely accepted' is like saying the same about the concept of God. Yes, people use it with confidence but they don't know what it is or mean different things by it. Science has always served to clear this sort of cultural mysticism; it has done so with God and will do so with money.

It doesn't look like a good idea to draw in God here

Anyway, science explains the concept of money pretty well and coherent, so there definitely is an accepted definition as well as understanding of money among mainstream economists. And it is not the concept of money itself which gives rise to many debates (as I said, the concept is well-established). It is things like forms of money, their impacts on society, ways of creating new money and so on that are a matter of heated disputes

Money will remain as long as it has a purpose as money. What many people debate is a new concept of money known as digital money. Digital money itself is another form previous money and digital money has another concept than previous money, but digital money has same goal as money in general.

Well this increasingly heated dispute must be resolved immediately, because inevitably government or community must accept new money. Because it is a condition for advancing to more modern times.

please note that I am not a biologist but, we believe that there are certain genes that control our greed, selfishness, and desire for money and power which have been the cause of war since the beginning of human civilization. there is no harm if one day there are people who are interested in taking part in research on this matter. Thank you for your enthusiasm

'The tendency to confuse cooperation with altruism needs to be overcome if morality and money are to be understood scientifically. When someone exchanges a coffee for something else, they are not actually being altruistic but cooperative. Any associated feelings of altruism belong in the moral, symbolic context of a society, not in the real context of trade. Thus, a token issued for rewarding altruistic actions (credit) cannot be logically called the same as a token wanted by people who are voluntarily looking to cooperate. The former kind of token follows the actions, whereas the latter precedes them.

Any system of exchange that relies on credit is vulnerable to deception and exploitation. Because altruistic actions are morally prescribed, there is a clear demand for credit, but also a clear incentive to issue it. In order to increase trust in the system, credit is often given a monetary basis that adds to the conceptual confusion of money with credit. It is generally hard to adopt an objective perspective on these concepts, away from what is commonly called ‘society’ and from the fact that language itself is sociocentric [23]. Phenomena such as kinship, modality and morality are all linguistic in nature and epistemically confusing [8, 24]. Financial discourse is equally shrouded in mystery, and now faces the challenge of technologies that disrupt the domestic setting in which it evolved.  

The term cryptocurrency inherits such ambiguities. The word currency refers to a medium of exchange issued within a legal context (from Middle English: curraunt, ‘in circulation’). But Bitcoin is not a currency because it exists de facto in the lawlessness of the internet, nor does cryptography alone provide its monetary qualities. Instead, bitcoins should be termed digital money, in the same way as many commodities and collectibles (e.g. precious metals, cigarettes in prison, salt in ancient times, wampum and other shells) are seen as tangible money.

Human societies endure on the basis of abstract beliefs and kinship systems that recruit cooperative partners. Credit has fuelled their exponential, competitive growth at the expense of the sustainable, intelligent growth that results from money alone. Morality and credit are fictional forms of value that concern only a subset of the species. On the other hand, money is ethical, because as a real form of value, it enables all human beings to cooperate regardless of where they were born.'

https://www.academia.edu/40138316/Money_is_a_token_of_cooperation_The_biology_of_indirect_exchanges (https://www.academia.edu/40138316/Money_is_a_token_of_cooperation_The_biology_of_indirect_exchanges)

I don't understand why people don't look bitcoin more likely a different payment method. In reality bitcoin's value is in USD, it's not independent, there is nothing that has fixed price in bitcoin but on another hand it really shows promises as a payment method. Convert USD into bitcoin and oh, anonymous transactions, offline wallet, whole online comfort. Bitcoin is something that gives you possibility to store money in virtual world like you store it in real life.

But it is not efficient as a store of value and would take a long time before people massively adopt it as such. Majority do not want to be responsible for their assets, they want to have a place they can go to, should something go wrong. And others believe you have to be 'techy' to get into bitcoins.

As a payment tool, it is a lot more efficient. Quick transfers which are anonymous and immutable. But it is still held back by adoption as only few real life stores accept bitcoins as a payment option.

Not too sure it really is as close to solving the debate and I'm not sure either of the guys backing Modern Money Theory or Austrian School theory (this link (https://youtu.be/cUTLCDBONok) in case anyone wants in) would agree this lays their case(s) to rest!

Interesting read, nevertheless. But there's also a lot of fresh conflicting evidence against the selfish gene (@dothebeats for e.g. more evidence shows we're not as instinctively anti-altruist as we think, as a recent Swedish study of public CCTV footage shows), suggesting that modern generations using modern money might actually not fit the logical mould anymore.

It is already in our nature and our mind mate,  and there is nothing we can do about it, and that is why religious leaders are trying their possible best to make sure the level of those characteristics that you mentioned are being limited because if not, the world would have been in a chaos and worst that the way you see it now.

Many people would have also been researching on this also, and you know why people go to school of theology, is to also learn how to talk human being out of these character that has turned them to evil because of the love of money. I don’t think it has anything with gene, it is just the mindset, because if it was with gene, it would have been impossible for people to be talked out of it, then get a medical treatment for it probably.

Oh, I am pretty sure most of them will disagree. They also disagree about Bitcoin having value... What this paper does is bring actual scientists into the debate rather than leave it to social theorists.


Have you read the paper? It says that cooperation is not the same thing as altruism. That is, it rejects the selfish gene paradigm (as a lot of biologists are doing recently).

Guys, it seems to me that everything happens and happens much easier and there is no need to appeal to high matter, as speculators manipulate the cryptocurrency market today, and Fiat is supported by states, because their economy depends on it.

I think this selfish Gene is somehow essential till and extent since it is the one that actually helps the world running , ofc too much of this is  a problem for sure.
This is actually derived from the *survival instinct*
If you are selfless you tend to be easily killed and you know other things .

There is a Gene for everything , even for our habit of moving legs without any stimuli .

I think bitcoin is still connected with fiat money and there are many more that are still hidden inside without you knowing. just understand the general nature of bitcoin so you don't get complicated. 

The article is actually against the 'selfish gene' mantra, which is nearly 50 years old and has been superseded by more realistic, non-moralistic theories about cooperation. Please read before you comment.

Indeed, all forms of currency created are actually connected with fiat because fiat itself is a base currency. Even bitcoin has a very high value because of fiat, if fiat doesn't exist, then where can bitcoin be pegged to? Well that's about concept. And true, that general nature of bitcoin is certainly not far from fiat,  only difference is that it adopts a technology.

Well, the connection is the currency, both of them are used as currency, one is old system and is being used by government has power over its people while the second is new and digital which gives freedom to lots of people to have control over their own personal finances.

The advantage of bitcoin being used as currency that I see is part form the freedom to individually operate our own transactions anonymously, it also serve as a digital assets for store of value which increase as the system appreciate while fiat does not, but rather is a fixed assets that is not that flexible and does not appreciate. Although satoshi came with the idea of bitcoin to supplement money, but I think that it has the power and all the technology to really replace money in future.

This is because you assume that biology has nothing to do with reality, which couldn't be further from the truth. Human societies are animal societies. You can keep understanding 'money' in the usual cultural way, but I wouldn't call that very empirical.

“Really, what is money?”  https://link.medium.com/hSshrD0hJZ  (https://link.medium.com/hSshrD0hJZ)