Is Proof of Work the Key to Cryptocurrency Security?

There are people who argue that in the absence of proof of work, the whole experiment is pointless. But ultimately, if it doesn't secure things any better, or decentralize things any more than current data centre politics, et cetera, that's not my position. All the present day discussions of crypto currencies are really backe some a basic ideas from economics and monetary theory which no one ever talks about. And we can make it other things if we want it to be. We haven't like, agreed as a planet that this is necessarily how money has to work.