In my view, this is a huge point. I hope this doesn't sound like quibbling, but I would expand the point by speculating that the functioning of a money system influences the overall prosperity of an economy. In other words, one economy could be more prosperous than another, simply based on which one has a "better" money system. In addition, like any other technology, people will use whatever money system is available to them, that works best for what they want to do.

In countries with dysfunctional money systems, people try to move their wealth into assets that are denominated in dollars, euro's, or something like that. If someone doesn't believe that their local money, or dollars, will function for them under some scenario, they might move to bitcoins or gold. I suspect that bitcoins could fill in that void for some people.

We don't know what our economy would look like without the major government money systems as they currently function.