Gm! Why am i still asking the question, "what is money?". While we ask that, what is currency? The answers always seem convoluted. Here is my stab at it. Let me know if you follow...
Before money, all we had was trust and reputation. This allowed value to flow. Barter or coinage worked sometimes. Money is the pure economic function that we need ie. Store of value, medium of exchange and unit of account. All forms of money are never perfect in all those functions and currency is used to make those functions work better. Currency is like a user interface for money, while money is the core protocol. The better the money is at fulfilling those 3 function, the less trust is needed but as you move into the currency layers, more trust is required. Even in bitcoin, the lightning network requires more trust eg. More custodial wallets, reliable node operators, etc. Again, trust and reputation is the currency in an abstracted form.
