Not only could the value of the big-data-backed cryptocurrency grow in value off the speculation, you could charge companies to upload/stream their data into the network and essentially have a giant distributed supercomputer processing it and searching for patterns. Then share a percentage of any revenue with the miners as an added bonus.
I feel we're already at the point where more data is produced than our ability to process, understand and extract useful insights from that data. And the rate at which global data is produced appears to be on a never ending exponential growth curve.
So in one swoop you could lay the foundations for a global distributed currency whilst harnessing the collective computing power of the Internet to solve humanity's problems, gain tremendously powerful insights into human behaviour at all levels from micro to macro, make us more efficient as a species and eventually the potential to become the global AI that feeds off all data streams; constantly feeding in, being processed, recorded, analysed, and subsequently feeding the computed knowledge into agents that make real-world decisions and actions.
If anyone has thoughts, skills or interest in this... hit me up.
Exactly, I think it is possible to create a distributed cyptocurrency and use that computation for something useful in the same time.
So, currency is more than anything the medium that enables trade. Trade enables specialisation and cooperation on a massive scale. If the scope and benefit of global trade doesn't "transcend the individual", I struggle to think of anything that does.
The classic "I, Pencil" essay[1], while written even polemically in support of capitalism, also serves as a great example of the scale of human cooperation enabled by currency.
Adam smith said it succinctly: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages."
http://www.classicreader.com/book/770/3/
As for "maximising the number of smiles" and "strive to feel better, not to have more", there is research that suggests that the way to do that is to become richer:
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/04/subjective-...
To me the whole thing is a manifestation of the bizarre way BTC are handed out, by competitive mining. (No, I don't have a better solution, but can't you see the issue here, the same amount of BTC are created but ever more power is being used)