Thanks for all the thoughtful debate,
I agree thanks, I have very much enjoyed this discussion.
I have come to think of it as information and a right tracking system monitored through mathematics and validated on a P2P system confirmed by all users. And the process we are going through now is an attempt to couple that system to represent economic contributions and withdrawals, so from our current perspective it helps to think of it as property but it is not in fact property, but more a participatory stewardship right.
I was moved by the understanding that Bitcoin's functioned as stewardship right more than a form of property, and as a right you can use it and give it to someone, but it can also die with you going back to the community as a whole.
in order to have stewardship rights, one must be a steward. Being a steward indicates that they have control over some sort of property, usually currency.
Please bear with me on this:
If a law was passed in the near future requiring everyone to deposit their promissory notes into a bank. Then by the new law they would be issued a mandatory debit card and online access to the account.
Once all of the notes were collected and no others existed, they are all destroyed. Even though the online register still shows a balance, would this act of destroying the notes deplete the balance in the accounts? So, what then is this currency we use and is undisputedly regarded as property and protected as such?
It could be argued that the currency is now the debit card, but if I destroy that debit card has my account been wiped? I think we can agree the debit card is only a means to disperse said currency just as the promissory note is. Neither of which were actually the currency itself.
In fact currency is defined as,
"a system of money (monetary units) in common use, especially in a nation", and does not need to be anything tangible.
So if the fiat currency we all use is regarded has property and is no more tangible than bitcoins. Why is it such a leap to regard bitcoins as property?