Comment Re:What use is there (Score 1) 221
From: https://www.stlouisfed.org/edu......
Towards the end, there is a section "fiat money", which the USD certainly is -- the slips of paper have no intrinsic value. Interestingly, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can in many ways also be considered fiat -- they have no intrinsic value, and are only worth anything because the people exchanging it for consideration agree that it does. In any event, the author there suggests there are 6 characteristics that "money" must satisfy. They are durability, portability, divisibility, uniformity, limited supply, and acceptability.
The USD hits all six quite well. Bitcoin meets at least 5 of those characteristics -- acceptability being the exception, as it is still limited to enthusiast use, for the most part. And it has some characteristics that can be considered superior to the dollar -- it's impossible to counterfeit, for example. It's lack of stability of value is largely due to the low numbers of people using it -- more users would reduce the volatility. (And the dollar is not immune, particularly over the long term. Todays USD will purchase far less value than the dollar of 20 years ago.)
Bitcoin is very much able to be "money". This does not guarantee it's success of course, and if it doesn't succeed, it will be worthless. But it's failure is far from certain.