You describe money as if it’s just numbers being moved around: yes, the technology is just numbers moving around, but money is a social construct not a technology, the use of technology is a very small part of what makes money money.
As someone who finds himself thinking “wtf is money” every decade or so, the most recent book I read on this was pretty good - Money: The Unauthorised Biography by Felix Martin. It’s firmly in the “social construct” camp and makes some good arguments (to my lay mind!). There’s some really interesting stuff about the Fei stones https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones
