Fungibility

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In economics and law, fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are essentially interchangeable. [1] [2] In legal terms, this affects how legal rights (such as ownership and the right to receive goods under a contract) apply to such items. Fungible things can be substituted for each other; for example, a $100 bill (note) is considered entirely equivalent to twenty $5 bills (notes), and therefore a person who borrows $100 in the form of a $100 bill can repay the money with twenty $5 bills. There is no requirement to return the same $100 bill. Non-fungible items are not substitutable in the same manner.

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Goods that are fungible are treated as commodities, and markets in commodities are active and liquid because of their fungibility. For example, gold is generally fungible because its value does not depend on any specific form, whether of coins, ingots, or other states. However, a unique item such as a gold statuette would not be considered fungible with the same weight of gold in some other form. Other fungible commodities include other precious metals and grades of crude oil. The legal recognition of fungibility is limited, and even very similar items, such as new cars of the same model and specifications, are not considered fungible with each other in law.

Many financial instruments, such as shares, bonds and currencies, are also fungible.

Fungibility refers only to the equivalence and indistinguishability of each unit of a commodity or other thing with other units of the same thing, and not to the ability to easily trade it for something else.

Etymology

The word fungibility comes from the Latin fungibilis, from the verb fungī, meaning "to perform", via phrases such as fungi vice, meaning "serve in place of". It is related to words such as "function" and "defunct". [3]  

Use

Finance

Fungibility is different from liquidity. A good is said to be liquid if it can be easily exchanged for money or another good. A good is fungible if one unit of the good is substantially equivalent to another unit of the same good of the same quality at the same time, place, etc.

Notably, money is fungible: one US $10 banknote is interchangeable with any other genuine banknote like it. [4] It is also interchangeable with two fives, ten ones, or any other combination of banknotes and coins adding up to $10.

On the other hand, diamonds and other gems are not perfectly fungible because their varying cuts, colors, grades, and sizes make it difficult to find several diamonds expected to have the same value. Packaged products on a retail shelf may be considered fungible if they are of the same type and equivalent in function and form. Customers and clerks can interchange packages freely until purchase, and sometimes afterward. After one opens the package and uses the product, however, it is usually considered unique and no longer interchangeable with unopened packages outside of exceptional circumstances, such as a return or exchange.

The traditional definition of a security, which includes shares, bonds and similar, is a "fungible, negotiable instrument", where "instrument" refers to its status as a legal document and "negotiable" means that the owner can transfer it with good title, even though it itself may have had defective title.

Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrencies are usually considered to be fungible assets, where one coin is equivalent to another. However, after a major breach in Japanese exchange Coincheck, token developers for cryptocurrency NEM added a special flag to hacked coins to indicate they are not to be traded or used. [5]

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are similar to units of blockchain currency, except that they are connected to unique digital files, so that individual tokens can be considered to have a meaningful distinction from others. This distinguishability allows NFTs to have unique use cases, such as their use as blockchain gaming assets, digital collectibles, to indicating ownership of fine art or real assets, used to facilitate decentralized finance loans, and to earn reward tokens. [6] [7]

Tasking

Fungibility has been used to describe certain types of tasks that can be broken down into interchangeable pieces that are easily parallelized and are not interdependent on the other pieces. For example: If a worker can hand dig one meter of a ditch in a day, and a ten-meter ditch needs to be dug, that worker can either be given ten days to complete the entire project or nine more workers can be hired for a single day. Each worker can complete their piece of the project without interfering with the other workers, and more importantly, each worker is not dependent on the results of any of the other workers to complete their share of the total project.

On the other hand, non-fungible tasks tend to be highly serial in nature and require the completion of earlier steps before later steps can even be started. As an example of a serial task that is not fungible, suppose there was a group of nine newly pregnant women. After one month, these women would have experienced a total of nine months of pregnancy, but a complete baby would not have been formed.

Quantum physics

Oxford University theoretical physicist David Deutsch has adopted the term "fungible" to describe the physical nature of quantum particles and universes within the quantum multiverse, where, by virtue of being identical in all respects, different particles chaotically divide or combine as a result of physical interactions from a common fungible fund in superposition. [8]

Law

United States

In legal disputes in the United States, when one party is compelled to remedy another party as the result of a ruling or adjudication, the appropriate legal remedy may depend on the fungibility of the underlying right, obligation or property interest that is intended to be restored. [9] Depending on whether the interests of the aggrieved party are fungible, a determination made by the trier of fact, the appropriate remedy may change. For example, a court may require specific performance (an equitable remedy) as a remedy for breach of contract, instead of the more favored remedy of monetary damages. [10]

Belgium

Belgium has adopted fungibility for its domestic central securities depository, CIK (Euroclear), which was set up in 1967–1968. According to royal decree No. 62, issued on 10 November 1967, depositors of fungible securities have the rights of co-ownership. This change was fundamental to the development of Euroclear, by then beginning to process Eurobonds and build systems. [11]

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commodity money</span> Money with value derived from composition from a commodity (such as silver or gold coins)

Commodity money is money whose value comes from a commodity of which it is made. Commodity money consists of objects having value or use in themselves as well as their value in buying goods. This is in contrast to representative money, which has no intrinsic value but represents something of value such as gold or silver, in which it can be exchanged, and fiat money, which derives its value from having been established as money by government regulation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commodity</span> Fungible item produced to satisfy wants or needs

In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them.

A virtual economy is an emergent economy existing in a virtual world, usually exchanging virtual goods in the context of an online game, particularly in massively multiplayer online games (MMOs). People enter these virtual economies for recreation and entertainment rather than necessity, which means that virtual economies lack the aspects of a real economy that are not considered to be "fun". However, some people do interact with virtual economies for "real" economic benefit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legal tender</span> Medium of payment recognized by law

Legal tender is a form of money that courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything which when offered ("tendered") in payment of a debt extinguishes the debt. There is no obligation on the creditor to accept the tendered payment, but the act of tendering the payment in legal tender discharges the debt.

In economics, standard of deferred payment is a function of money. It is the function of being a widely accepted way to value a debt, thereby allowing goods and services to be acquired now and paid for in the future.

In economics, a medium of exchange is any item that is widely acceptable in exchange for goods and services. In modern economies, the most commonly used medium of exchange is currency. Most forms of money are categorised as mediums of exchange, including commodity money, representative money, cryptocurrency, and most commonly fiat money. Representative and fiat money most widely exist in digital form as well as physical tokens, for example coins and notes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swiss franc</span> Currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein

The Swiss franc is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It is also legal tender in the Italian exclave of Campione d'Italia which is surrounded by Swiss territory. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) issues banknotes and the federal mint Swissmint issues coins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exonumia</span> Numismatic items other than coins and paper money

Exonumia are numismatic items other than coins and paper money. This includes "Good For" tokens, badges, counterstamped coins, elongated coins, encased coins, souvenir medallions, tags, wooden nickels and other similar items. It is an aspect of numismatics and many coin collectors are also exonumists.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Token money</span> Form of money that has little intrinsic value compared to its face value

Token money, or token, is a form of money that has a lesser intrinsic value compared to its face value. Token money is anything that is accepted as money, not due to its intrinsic value but instead because of custom or legal enactment. Token money costs less to produce than its face value. A banknote, e.g. a five-pound note, is token money because despite its value being 5 pounds it only costs significantly less to produce. A gold coin is not considered token money. The Token money system has been adopted in many businesses around the world as an effective way to exchange value between companies and customers. Token money as a system is predominantly used in mobile games, but is also used in the realm of e-commerce. Token money is similar to fiat money which also has little intrinsic value, however they differ in that token money is a limited legal tender. The adoption of token money has improved transaction efficiency, as the practicalty of transacting with sums of gold poses a larger security risk. In a commodity economy, money is a measure of the value of goods and services (prices) within a sovereign country or the same economy, as well as a particular commodity to pay off debts. The token is also used as a medium of exchange, as a store of value, and as a unit of account. Digital currencies using decentralized blockchain technology are also a form of token money.

The history of money is the development over time of systems for the exchange, storage, and measurement of wealth. Money is a means of fulfilling these functions indirectly and in general rather than directly, as with barter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Token coin</span> Trade token

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cook Islands dollar</span> Currency of the Cook Islands

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Certificate of authenticity</span> Seal placed on objects (physical or digital) to show they are genuine

A certificate of authenticity (COA) is a seal or small sticker on a proprietary computer program, t-shirt, jersey, or any other memorabilia or art work, especially in the world of computers and sports. It is commonly a seal on paper authenticating a specific art work which and is made to demonstrate that the item is authentic.

Virtual currency, or virtual money, is a digital currency that is largely unregulated, issued and usually controlled by its developers, and used and accepted electronically among the members of a specific virtual community. In 2014, the European Banking Authority defined virtual currency as "a digital representation of value that is neither issued by a central bank or a public authority, nor necessarily attached to a fiat currency but is accepted by natural or legal persons as a means of payment and can be transferred, stored or traded electronically." A digital currency issued by a central bank is referred to as a central bank digital currency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Money</span> Object or record accepted as payment

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethereum</span> Open-source blockchain computing platform

Ethereum is a decentralized blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capitalization. It is open-source software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Non-fungible token</span> Unique and non-interchangeable data

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchain and can be transferred by the owner, allowing NFTs to be sold and traded. NFTs can be created by anybody and require few or no coding skills to create. NFTs typically contain references to digital files such as artworks, photos, videos, and audio. Because NFTs are uniquely identifiable, they differ from cryptocurrencies, which are fungible.

Colored Coins is an open-source protocol built on the Bitcoin 2.0 that allows users to represent and manipulate immutable digital resources on top of Bitcoin transactions. They are a class of methods for representing and maintaining real-world assets on the Bitcoin blockchain, which may be used to establish asset ownership. Colored coins are bitcoins with a mark on them that specifies what they may be used for. Colored coins are also considered the initial step toward NFTs built on top of the Bitcoin network.

References

  1. Merriam-Webster. "Fungible (adjective)". Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and Thesaurus. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. Retrieved 22 August 2014.
  2. "What is fungible? Definition and examples". Market Business News. Retrieved 2 April 2021.
  3. Etymonline.com. "fungible (adj.)". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  4. Milton, Adam (15 February 2017). "Fungible, Trading Term Definition". The Balance. Retrieved 15 November 2015.
  5. Alpeyev, Pavel (2018-01-29). "How to Launder $500 Million in Digital Currency". Bloomberg.
  6. "Britannica Money". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  7. "10 Popular NFT Use Cases | Built In". builtin.com. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  8. "The flawed multiverse – Physics World". Physics World. 2011-09-22. Retrieved 2018-09-27.
  9. S. Williston, The Law of Contracts § 1338 (1920); Farnsworth, E. Allan (1970). "Legal Remedies for Breach of Contract". Columbia Law Review . 70 (7): 1145–1216. doi:10.2307/1121184. JSTOR   1121184.
  10. Bunge Corp. v. Recker, U.S. Ct. of App., 8th Cir., 1975; Restatement (Second) of Contracts Ch 16. introductory note (1981)
  11. Norman, Peter (February 2008), Plumbers and Visionaries, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, p. 12, ISBN   978-0-470-72425-5

Further reading

  1. Bartram, Söhnke M.; Fehle, Frank R. (March 2007). "Competition without Fungibility: Evidence from Alternative Market Structures for Derivatives". Journal of Banking and Finance . 31 (3): 659–677. doi:10.1016/j.jbankfin.2006.02.004. S2CID   55973719. SSRN   311880.