The abstraction of money and markets changed the way humans think permanently. Philosophically, it may have been the most important realization or milestone to date. In effect, money is the metric for a universal scale. It allows us to measure and compare the value of things that are otherwise unrelated. On the same scale we can put something as abstract as a piece of art or the time it takes to output labor as well as something as concrete as an arbitrary task or construct.
Not only can this scale measure virtually an infinite amount of things, the value of the metric is distributively self correcting and we all have a say in it. Using the stock market we can vote on the value of companies; by withdrawing or putting forth consumption we can inflate or deflate the value of a single unit. The metric is universal and distributed, the same system can be used at varying degrees of localization with a different base value and remains compatible with the rest of the systems being utilized in smaller or larger scales. This recursive correction and competition allows logical collectives to decide on the value of another logical collective’s values.
With these things in mind, it seems to me cryptocurrency or cryptofiat is absolutely the evolution of money. The internet is another similarly global and distributed entity, this system is one of information instead of valuations. The boundaries between the two are made blurry with cryptocurrency in a very beneficial way. The degree of specificity as well as the nature of things that can be measured are taken to their next logical extension. The privacy respecting Brave browser integrates a fascinating use case that well illustrates the point far better than I can articulate. Basic Attention Token is a way to both measure and monetize the attention of an individual in a way that cannot be implemented with the current limitations of money (this is not an endorsement, it is an example and an appreciation of how much Brendan Eich is pushing the potential and capabilities of what money and currency can be).
Governments are becoming more global. The internet is a global information network that is reaching more and more of the world. Cryptocurrency is making the functions of maintaining currency and its trust more globally distributed. The way we interact with each other as individuals were permanently changed by these things and will continue to change with these things. The way our brains work are being changed by global systems. We are more together than we have ever been and the upper limits of this togetherness has yet to be observed. As we become a more global species the individuals that make it up have a more global reach. If the first part of the history of humanity was to explore the entirety of the Earth, the second part will be to bring it together.