Default money is ugly and needs to be improved(yes im aware its not even out yet but that stuffs ugly[on second thought though it could mean its made of redstone, due to the coloring. Redstone can be somewhat rare and to make a hard coin you would have to combine a decent ammount of it, so that could work out well actually.]).
They should make the money craftable, but somewhat expensive although equal to trading, like 1 iron plus 3 gold nuggets could be 1-5 coins, idk something like that. It'd be cool if the game could scan the village and see what they have around them, such as the biome, crops, and animals. Maybe even give villages their own little animal farm that is generated by the natural landscape and wild life. Make them harvest their wheat, kill off some animals(however you wouldnt be able to kill their animals or harvest their crops without invoking their anger.), and depending on how much they have of something price could be adjusted, for example if they have a lot of cows leather and beef would be worth less since they have that already, just in live cow form. The same would go for crops and items. however the only problem I can think of is how would ores have their value checked, same for coal and charcoal.Tthey could make it fairly complex, but rewarding. Maybe villages could even have random quests that appear every few minecraft days or something, making sticking around have meaning giving a new way to make the game more rpg like and possible boss battles or dungeons. Possible rewards would be awesome too, like unique items and enchantments, or just a lot of money.
wall of text aaaa