That makes it a security. By definition, currency is something you can exchange for goods or services, while securities are financial instruments that hold value (i.e. can be exchanged for currency).

See also: the European Currency Unit. Not a currency, but sort of acted like one.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Currency_Unit

Stocks are a thing because no one thinks of them as liquid assets. Steam is making the same argument about bitcoin essentially.

It was eye-opening to realize people buy stocks for 2 reasons:

1. Dividend payments

2. The expectation that someone else will want the stock more in the future. (Often for reason #1.)

Financially, there is no other logical reason to possess stocks. It was part of the larger lesson that companies often perform irrational actions because they are made primarily out of people.

3. Voting rights.

Stocks are an order of magnitude more liquid than Bitcoin, though

That would depend entirely on the stock. I'm sure there are many, many companies whose stock trades at less daily volume than BTC. Actually, I'd think few companies' stock trades at BTC's volume.

Oh sure, Berkshire Hathaway is less liquid. There are lots of stocks designed via various tricks (usually just share price) to be held and not traded.

Nonetheless, for any of the "commonly traded and indexed investment securities we all talk about colloquially as 'stocks'", the daily trade to capitalization ratio is routinely an order of magnitude higher than bitcoin.

No, it becomes an asset, like gold.

The thing with gold is that it's been valued for thousands of years all around the world and you can show it off, and we're pretty sure that we won't find a pure gold asteroid hurling towards us.

BC has none of those advantages.

Wait, has a pure Bitcoin asteroid been detected already?

Where then, would you draw the line between a currency and a non-currency asset?

When it hits all of:

    Acceptability
    Durability
    Divisibility
    Stability
    Portability
    (Elasticity)

If you can't spend it easily, it's not a (functioning) currency.

If it spoils or decays within your lifetime it's not a currency.

If it's not something you can divide in order to make payments of a more-or-less arbitrary amount, it's not a currency.

If you can't predict how much of the asset you will need to pay your bills next month, it's not a currency

If you can't bring it with you to the place where the exchange takes place, it's not a currency.

If you can't obtain capital investment in a currency because the currency itself is more valuable than anything you could produce, then it's not a (good long term) currency. This last one is in parens because it one only matters in a growing economy. A deflationary currency can still otherwise function as a viable medium of exchange, but eventually, lack of availability for new entrants will mean that entrepreneurs will begin looking to do business in alternate currencies.

> If you can't predict how much of the asset you will need to pay your bills next month, it's not a currency

Back in the hyperinflation days, we couldn't predict how many Cr$ we would need to pay our bills in the next month. That didn't keep it from being a currency.

That period did not last. Yes, if you try hard enough and look narrowly enough you can find exceptions to any of these rules, but it holds as a general guideline. If hyperinflation had continued indefinitely, it's probable some other commodity would have supplanted it as a de facto currency.

Are you missing fungibility or is that covered?

Missed it. In my mind I think I lumped it in with divisibility, which is related but not quite the same thing.

Nice. In that case, I wonder if you've ever heard of Monero? :)

Liquidity, probably - how fast can you exchange how much of it.

Though I do personally think there's a lot more to a currency than that.

Everything is a currency, if you barter hard enough.

Barter is, by definition, an exchange of goods without using money. In other words if you have to barter to get rid of it, it's not currency.