>for many of us, money is only experienced through our phones, as a number on a screen. You pay your rent with one app, you buy put options with another. The number goes up, it goes down, it lives in the little portal we hold in our hands. And decades ago it was a number written down on a little piece of paper, and before that it was little pieces of “precious” metal locked away somewhere. At least nowadays amateurs…
It's the other way around. First there was personal debt, then impersonal money. In the beginning you would just lend stuff from other people and give it back, or with consumables give something back of similar worth. Precious metal was pretty rarely used, as its main benefit is that you need almost no common trust relationship.
It’s the difference between 1) going out to a bar with friends and remembering “Alice has bought the group X rounds, Bob has bought Y rounds, and I’ve bought Z, meaning it’s Bob’s turn to buy a round because he is in beer debt” and 2) “Alice and Bob and I generally buy each other rounds and it all feels roughly balanced so I’ll buy this round.” Tracked and tallied debt came much later as I understand it.