Comment Re: Matter of time (Score 1) 149
The haircut to token exchange rate is determined by the market, which is actually what makes money interesting. When you barter directly the market which determines the value of your goods is very small. Essentially it's the value of the good or service you have to trade to the person who has the good or service you want. This is seriously distorting. For example if you're a hog farmer and the person you're trying to trade with is Jewish or Muslim, you're broke even if you own a million hogs.
One of the fundamental aspects of money is that it is for all intents and purposes worthless beyond what you can purchase with it. This has always been true. If the US currency were all of a sudden backed by gold again the amount of gold you'd get for your dollar would be tiny a gram of gold is worth $41 at the moment. As I said previously even when we actually used specie the amount of it in regular use coins was so small as to be worthless. If money were actually worth something on its own you'd have massive market distortions as people tried to trade around the item itself. That's what makes it special, it isn't worth anything at all, fiat, gold backed, actually made of metal, it doesn't matter.