drew

Yes, those transactions are "in bitcoin," but forget about that for a minute. Each potential transaction you could make is you getting something, probably non-bitcoin, in return, like USD or a house or Amazon gift cards.

So, think of bitcoin ownership--key knowledge--as simply having these powers to exchange. Remember, this is an infinity of conditionals extending out into the future and into the merely possible.

So, you don't need to *worry* about what bitcoin is. The ontological question drops out of the equation. Don't worry about it.

@Suitpossum if you really want to push the question, then here is a theory. Bitcoin is what you own when you own bitcoin. What you own when you own bitcoin is this infinite set of powers to trade. THEREFORE, bitcoin just is those powers.

x amount of bitcoin=the set of powers to exchange that one has when one has x bitcoin.

Sticking to exchanges, think of the bid side of the order books over time as a set of conditionals about how much fiat (or other crypto asset) you could get for a given amount of bitcoin at that time. Now, with bitcoin ownership, you own the power to collect future bids.

Just as the tax code is a function from dollar amounts to not-going-to-jail-for-tax-evasion, so too, the bid side of order books is a function from bitcoin amounts to dollar amounts. They're precisely parallel.

"Bitcoin is power: a reply to Warmke"