How Emerging Technologies Are Shaping the Future of The Global Economy

Otherwise, A and B must delegate their commodity ownership to someone who then redistributes it between them. However, such a centralized solution would at least partially contradict the same ownership, by at least partially transferring it away from its rightful controllers. Hence, only a decentralized solution can preserve the whole commodity ownership underlying this exchange, by A and B exchanging x and y directly.

Still, direct commodity exchange poses two problems, either of which alone is enough to prevent it. The first problem has a subjective nature:

To be exchangeable for each other, x and y must share the same exchange value.
It can happen that every exchangeable quantity of x has a different exchange value to that of any exchangeable quantity of y.
The second problem has an objective nature instead. Let (as below) A, B, and C own commodities x, y, and z, respectively. If A wants y, B wants z, and C wants x, then direct exchange could not give those three owners their desired commodities — as none of them owns the same commodity wanted by who owns their wanted one. Moneyless exchange now can only happen if one of those commodities becomes a multiequivalent: a simultaneous equivalent of the other two commodities at least for the owner who neither wants nor owns it — whether the other two owners also know of this multiequivalence or not. For example, A could obtain z in exchange for x with C only to give it in exchange for y with B, this way making z a multiequivalent (as asterisked):

A –> y | B –> z | C –> x

x _____ | y _____ | z*

z* ____ | y _____ | x

y _____ | z _____ | x

Still, this individually-handled multiequivalence poses a second pair of problems:

It enables conflicting indirect exchange strategies. In this last e9 antminer , A could still try to obtain z in exchange for x with C (only to give it in exchange for y with B) even with B simultaneously trying to obtain x in exchange for y with A (only to give it in exchange for z with C).
It not only allows — again — for all mutually exchangeable quantities of two commodities to have different exchange values, but also increases the likelihood of that mismatch, by depending on additional exchanges between different pairs of commodities.
Social Multiequivalence

Fortunately, all those problems have the only and same solution of a single multiequivalent m becoming social, or money. Then, commodity owners can either give (sell) their commodities in exchange for m or give m in exchange for (buy) the commodities they want. For example, again let A, B, and C own commodities x, y, and z, respectively. Still assuming A wants y, B wants z, and C wants x, if now they only exchange their commodities for that m social multiequivalent — initially owned just by A — then: