What's exciting is that it is the first digital, global money that isn't protected by the proof of violence of the state.
I really like the idea of trying to build at least some part of society on top of mathematics instead of the laws of physics, but I am not really convinced that cryptocurrencies are an example or that this is even possible. The entire Bitcoin system is still made up of humans and hardware, there are still a lot of ways in which the laws of physics could overrule mathematics. Being distributed admittedly makes this harder but I think it is far from to point of being really effective.
I really like the idea of trying to build at least some part of society on top of mathematics instead of the laws of physics, but I am not really convinced that cryptocurrencies are an example or that this is even possible. The entire Bitcoin system is still made up of humans and hardware, there are still a lot of ways in which the laws of physics could overrule mathematics. Being distributed admittedly makes this harder but I think it is far from to point of being really effective.