Is Currency Just Another Form of Communication?

When you think of the word communicate, what comes to mind for you? Most of us would reply with, a transfer of feelings, a sharing of thought processes, love, agreements, and disagreements. But what if I were to tell you that another way we communicate is through currency?

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The thing is, money is energy. Currency is energy. It just is. Most of us would associate money to be an analytical, right-side-of-the-brain topic. The thing is, the way we spend it, and receive it, is energy. Currency gets its importance based on its sheer potential. Thats it. The only reason we put any real weight upon it is that we need it to live a halfway decent life. The amount of money we acquire determines our lifestyle and the kind of life we will live. 

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Perhaps the use of money is more emotional than we think it is.

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We use monetary value to communicate. We don't think about this because we are so used to being consumers. If you break it down, it is all about communication. An exchange of energy between the buyer and the seller. The seller is voicing “I believe my goods are worth “x” amount of money. The buyer is then voicing back, “I believe your goods are worth “x” amount of money. A transaction is formed. Whether you are selling a shiny new product, juicy content, or a valuable service; people essentially communicate how valuable it is to them by sending money to you. Your product is only as good as the amount someone is willing to pay for it. Period.

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The thing is, we don’t actually own our money until it is physically in our hands. Until we see the green and blue paper staring back at us, we do not own it. Let's say you want to send fiat to one of your friends. You would most likely use an app such as Venmo, Cashapp, or Zelle, assuming it is linked to your bank account, and you would send the money. You would like to think that money is going straight to the person you’re sending it to right? Wrong. The money is first stored in the third-party app, that app then owns it for the time being until it is transferred to their bank account. Once it's sent to their bank account, the bank owns it. That means if the government wanted to at any point, they could freeze your account, making it so you cannot access it. Once it is in your bank account, you would then drive to an ATM, and withdraw the money. Now you own it. This could take hours, or even days, depending on how often you leave your house.

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What would happen if we started communicating using money that we actually own? Cryptocurrencies are unique because it provides a secure platform to exchange money freely where the only people involved are the buyer and the seller. 

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Say you wanted to donate to a charity, if you used Bitcoin to do so, you can rest assured knowing that your hard-earned dollar is going straight to the charity without the use of a sneaky middleman. All the information you store in a blockchain is private and transparent. 

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Whether we like it or not, most of us use social media to run our businesses and sell our products. If you like the content, you have the opportunity to pay for it in several different ways. On Medium, a popular blogging site, you can not only “clap” to say “Hey, I like this!” You can also send money. This is communicating to the writer that a customer feels their article is valuable enough to spend money on it. 

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If you wanted to send a tip using Bitcoin, you would use an app called Tippin and the money is transferred. That blogger then owns that money. If you were to send the money via credit card, there’s a process that includes several steps before that person actually “owns” that money.

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This is where fiat is flawed. I don’t know anyone in their right mind who would be like “You know what? I’m cool with the government owning my money for the time being. That's fine. It’s all good in the clitoral hood!” 

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Cryptocurrencies provide an efficient way to send money without any permission or use of a third party.

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Let's take Bitcoin as an example of this: the steps to send and receive Bitcoin are quite simple. If you’d like to send Bitcoin, you are provided with an address made up of letters and numbers, or a QR code that you scan with your phone camera into your "wallet." You choose the amount you want to send, confirm it, and it’s sent. The person who is then receiving it follows similar instructions, they get notified and then see their balance increase. They own this. We do not own our money until it is in our physical hands. 

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Cryptocurrencies are an asset, just like a house or a car. They hold value immediately. Fiat, unless spent, is just a piece of paper. Until spent, it holds no value. If it isn’t spent, you might as well be poor! As Kim Kardashian’s ex-husband  quotes in the famous song "Clique," "You know white people get money, don't spend it, Or maybe they get money, buy a business. I rather buy 80 gold chains and go ig'nant." He’ll be just fine.

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What other ways do we communicate using money? Prices! Prices send a message to the buyer expressing what the product is worth, or what the seller thinks the product is worth. An example of this would be a dive bar. A dive bar typically gets most of its business at night versus during the day. The owner is essentially communicating this to the public, by offering cheaper prices during the day. Thank God for happy hour!

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The communication of currencies could also be another way to ask someone, “How much money do you have?” Or “How much is my product worth?” Or even in some cases, "How much am I worth?" What a great way to get our boyfriends to buy us gifts! Kidding. But not really. We express this through money; what we are willing to give, how much we feel the product is worth, etc. To a lot of people, money is even equated to love. Yuck, I know, but I don’t make the rules. You may not like the game, but you have to learn how to play it. Thank you, Robert Greene!

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This is an exchange of energy. This is communication. It is virtually communicating “I have a wallet, you have a wallet. I am willing to take what’s in my wallet, the very thing that determines the way I live, and places it into your wallet.” I am paying for something I deem valuable and communicating this to the seller.

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While money holds the power to generate a sense of community, it also has the power to divide, exclude and discriminate. This is why money is such a powerful source of energy. 

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So if we put so much weight on money, why is it so easy for us to spend it frivolously? 

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This is where you start to understand how important money is to someone. There are people of all shapes and sizes who put more weight on money than others. You could tell a lot about a person based on how important money is to them. We communicate this to people a lot more than you think. I have noticed from personal experience, the more weight a person places on money, and how important it is to them; the more intense the energy surrounding them regarding the subject. This not only communicates the different levels of importance between us but what our values are.

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More people than ever are now paying for subscriptions such as OnlyFans, rather than actually going to a bar and physically meeting someone. Perhaps we don’t have the mental capacity at the moment, and meeting someone new requires work. Maybe we don’t always want a personal connection. We are communicating this to content creators by simply making the transaction. We are voicing that we are happy to pay the amount they asked for, and we are voicing that we are choosing to physically view the content than do anything else. We are voicing that we prefer being there in that current moment, rather than making an actual connection with a physical person. I mean yeah, titties are cool, but why are we so willing to spend our hard-earned buck on something we aren't even physically experiencing?

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Not only is fiat a symbol of trust, social classification, and identity, but it is also a cultural medium. When we use fiat, we are essentially communicating that we are okay with the government having control. Most of us don’t think of it like that, which is why those of us who use cryptocurrencies are actively communicating that we do not want the government taking part in something, that in a way, is incredibly personal!

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Those of us who use cryptocurrencies aren't just using them in place of fiat, but we are actively voicing our right to freedom of speech. Cryptocurrencies provide a secure platform and make it so that data cannot be censored or blocked. Remember how annoying it was in high school to not have access to certain books because it was deemed “inappropriate?” Even if those books provided a great deal of knowledge? This is a similar idea, except we have the power to do something about it, and actively communicate that actively. 

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Cryptocurrencies can also be looked at as an assertion of rights toward the government. A straightforward way of saying “I do not need your permission to buy/sell goods, I do not want your permission to buy/sell goods, and I would prefer to not involve you in my use of buying and selling goods." What a powerful way to communicate!

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Sophia is a writer from Rochester, NY. Sophia specializes in blogging, specifically topics surrounding human behavior and mental health. Sophia uses her writing to empower and de-stigmatize the most uncomfortable of topics, in hopes to encourage vulnerability and a sense of community.

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