This study addresses the terminology in circulation around digital payment instruments and seeks to fix the sense of each term firmly enough to serve as a basis for examination — without advancing to that examination itself.
The problem
Across the available writing these terms are used inconsistently, and the confusion runs between what is an instrument of transfer and what is a store of value.
Method
- Collecting the usages found in technical sources.
- Setting them against usages in legal writing.
- Proposing a terminological distinction that removes the ambiguity.
- Media of transfer.
- Stores of value.
- Records of entry.
Fixing a term is not a linguistic luxury; it is a condition of sound examination.
See also the Foundation's other publications.
