Yes, but if the Telegram app/platform was the only place I could conduct commerce using their money, I'm still screwed, unless a "secondary" marketplace emerges where you can use it. In which case, why not use Bitcoin or Eth to begin with? (Genuine question.)

>In which case, why not use Bitcoin

Is there anyone using bitcoin for transactions anymore? Fees are absurdly prohibitive.

Crypto markets use it a lot.

Just like if the US Government ceases to exist we'll still have all these dollar bills.

Or if the world stopped to exist we also wouldn't need any currency. You know where I'm going. The default risk of Telegram cannot even be compared to that of the US.

I honestly don't know where you're going with that argument.

My point was that if the central bank behind a currency goes away so does all of its utility, even if the currency is still physically or digitally there.

No one said anything about default. You can't default on a currency that isn't backed by anything.

> My point was that if the central bank behind a currency goes away so does all of its utility, even if the currency is still physically or digitally there.

That's not true. Unless the bank is critical for conducting transactions, their presence is not required for a currency they produced/backed to have value.

Value in currencies is whatever people assign to it. Utility is whether people will accept it as payment. If the US government goes tango uniform next week, and I and those around me have enough cash available (let's also assume the banks and CC companies we rely on for card/digital transactions also disappear) we can use the remaining physical currency as our method of denominating our local economy, and likely would.

You can't send people dollar bills on Telegram... otherwise yes, that would be a great solution.

And then nobody ever maintains the software and it still falls apart eventually.