On a Pacific island in Micronesia, they used three-meter-tall stones as currency. They were called rai, and some weighed tons.

Now for the interesting part: they never moved them. They stayed where they were. They weren't exactly easy to move!

So, how did they buy and sell with them? Easy.

When a stone changed hands, they didn't drag it somewhere else. The whole village simply knew it now belonged to someone else. They carried it in their minds, all of them.

There was one that fell into the sea on its way to the island. It sank. And yet it continued to be used as payment because everyone knew it existed and who it belonged to. A stone at the bottom of the ocean, functioning as currency.

In other words, the money was never the stone. It was never the object. It was the agreement. A shared record of who had what, stored in the memory of the entire community.

Think about this for a moment, because it's deeper than it seems. If money is essentially a ledger of accounts that everyone accepts, the question is who keeps that ledger and whether you can trust it.

Well, that's exactly what Bitcoin is.

A ledger that everyone can see, that no one controls, and that no one can tamper with. You don't have to trust a bank or a government. It's out in the open, recorded forever.

In the end, the banknote you carry in your wallet is more primitive than a centuries-old stone. Those islanders knew perfectly well why their money was worth something and who backed it. Do you know about yours?