Since people can maintain a copy of the key then possession of the Bitcoin is itself dependent on the history of its transaction.
Oddly these crypto currencies are very much like the giant coins of Yap, whose current ownership is entirely dependent on each coin’s oral history of ownership. It should be further noted that even stone coins lost to the sea in transport from where they were made their value is still maintained since the oral history for each is able to be maintained. In general none of the coins is physically moved anyway once in place.
From : https://phys.org/news/2019-06-team-ancient-digital-currency.html
“”They are one of the world’s most intriguing coins,” he said. “Carved from limestone quarries located in the Palau islands some 250 miles from Yap, they’re the largest objects ever moved over the open Pacific Ocean during the pre-European contact era.”
Up to 12 feet in diameter and weighing tons, the coins were typically placed in prominent—and permanent—locations upon their arrival in Yap.
“They aren’t the sort of thing you’d want to move more than once,” Fitzpatrick said.
Still, the Yapese continued to exchange rai following these initial placements, using an oral ledger that tracked the coins’ value and any changes in ownership.
“They were used for key social transactions like marriages and ransoms,” Fitzpatrick said. “Each exchange was recorded in the oral history which functioned as a public ledger, maintaining a continuous chain of information and preventing disputes over ownership.”
Bitcoin operates in much the same way. The cryptocurrency relies on blockchain, a digital ledger that verifies transactions across a computer network and makes transaction histories available to everyone who participates in the network.
“As with the rai stones, information about bitcoins’ value and ownership is managed collectively; it’s a distributed financial system as opposed to the more familiar, centralized systems involving third-party financial institutions,” said McKeon, academic director of the Cameron Center for Finance and Securities Analysis in the Lundquist College of Business.
Fitzpatrick and McKeon speculate that the Yapese community ledger system may have informed the development of bitcoin centuries later.. . .”