What cryptocurrency has been teaching us should have been clear already from fiat currency, but I guess it wasn't.

When you say "money is real-world game points," that seems to trivialize money by comparing it to arbitrary rewards won in play.

What if, on the other hand, the comparison actually ennobled money?

What if realizing that currency is best created according to rules open to all players - according to strict, consistent game rules, that is - could improve the way we think about, generate, deal in, disperse, award, earn, discuss, and compete over money?

What if "money is generated according to strict rules known - or knowable - to everyone" clarified and then improved the global economy?

Until very recently, money was created behind the scenes by banks deciding to write checks to give loans.

Today, you can create your own currency that is awarded according to the rules you specify.

This is different, in that fiat currency was not ur-awarded (ok I'm playing: "minted") according to clear, programmatic rules, and it was issued as debt with interest.

The new currency is like stocks, except stocks are supposed to pay dividends. Now a company can start and instead of asking for money from investors in return for stocks, can invent its own currency to disburse according to the rules it dreams up - which must be strict and visible, not arbitrary or a matter of favoritism, and in that sense fair - and then shape public behavior with this currency. Stocks are a one-time expression, in a sense: the company issues stocks (or maybe bonds), people buy them, trade them. Crypto is so similar yet so different: the stocks issued bureaucratically, financial instruments that pay dividends, morph and become cryptocurrency that does not pay dividends and that issues according to whether you're following the rules that generate that currency. Crypto shapes the activities of the people involved directly as a reward for participation. It's like the difference between eating birthday cake once a year and training your puppy to do tricks with dog treats every day. The birthday cake isn't supposed to teach you anything, just provide calories. The dog treats are exciting because treats mean calories biologically, but what's really going on is that you're training the dog.

Helium coin is the best example of this new model I've seen. Where does Helium coin come from? You earn it by running a hotspot that helps create and maintain the Helium 5G WiFi/IoT network. In a sense you work for the company from home, and they pay you in money that they just made up, according to rules that they just made up - but, critical point, rules that are visible to everyone, and apply equally to everyone.

Voila: the concept of game points has turned into actual, investable, influential, usable money, and arguably this kind of money is better than the old kind.

Do you see what I mean? "Money is game points" doesn't trivialize money. It points out the importance of rules that we all know and that apply equally to everyone. And it suggests money can be far more democratic than we imagined.

If you ask me, this cat isn't going back into that bag. Now that anyone can create a currency, the world won't ever be quite the same.

Also, someone other than me is going to realize that game studies and money policy are intimately linked, and not just by matrix-style, Cold War-style "game theory": by the principles of game design.