Cryptocurrencies are fiat currencies: They have no intrinsic value except what people collectively agree to pretend they do. It's paper money on a computer.

At least gold has real uses in jewellery and industrial applications to put a floor under its value.

> I buy heaps of stuff with bitcoin

You're bartering for heaps of stuff. I get heaps of stuff by offering services or other stuff in exchange. Yet my services or other stuff are not a currency. And some towns accept taxes in form of community work for example which is also not a currency.

> crypto is far from "not a currency"

It's explicitly called "not a currency" by both Fed and the ECB as far as I know. Now it all boils down to whether you prefer your personal definition of currency over the one coming from central banks and laws.

Alternative currencies are the same as alternative facts or alternative truth. They can have the same effect as the real thing and be used successfully achieve the same purpose. But they shouldn't be confused.

But I'm bartering if I use £/$/€ too then. I barter my work for tokens, I exchange the tokens for goods. Does it matter what the tokens are if I can exchange them?

It matters because currencies, securities, and commodities are regulated differently and by different institutions. It may sound to you like they should be the same but they're not. They are different financial instruments, just like bonds and stocks are different from cash. What would you think if someone called an L3 cache "a CPU RAM", or an SD card a "micro hard disk"?

We're on a highly technical site so I would expect the same degree of accuracy when using terms from other fields as you expect when talking computers.

Well I think your expectations are wrong, but think of it like this, the end user doesn't care if the work is being done by an L3 cache or a "CPU ram", they could call it a "CPU cache", and as long as it does what they expect it to do they don't care for the specifics.

In this example, bitcoin can be exchanged for goods and services, much like an approved currency,so the end user doesn't care what you call it just that it works,and in that respect bitcoin does work.

Some people like Bitcoin and some people use it to pay for stuff, and they want to see more people like them, so they can transact in Bitcoin more.

Some critics seem to like making frankly ill conceived semantic arguments about the academic definition of a currency (or on your case, appeals to authority), but it really has no relation to whether Bitcoin is going to succeed or not succeed.

> Some people like [cigarettes] and some people use it to pay for stuff, and they want to see more people like them, so they can transact in [cigarettes] more.

Therefore cigarettes are currency. Liking something is not an argument.

> frankly ill conceived semantic arguments about the academic definition of a currency

My argument is ill conceived because it's "just" based on the academic (legal) definition of currency? We truly do live in a world of "alternative truths” and “alternative facts” where using the actual definition of something in a relevant context is frowned upon.

Actually, I felt your argument was not based on the academic definition of a currency, but rather on "a central bank said so in a Twitter thread".

The arguments that people usually make about Bitcoin not fitting the legal definition of money are ill-conceived because they are semantic. Apparently, money is: a means of exchange, a store of wealth, a unit of account. It is clearly all of that to some people, so it undoubtedly fits the definition. But just because it fits into the academic definition of money, doesn't it can't be considered an asset. It fits the definition of an asset as well. Coincidentally, Wikipedia says about the term asset: "It covers money [...] belonging to a business or person".

Of course, now we are talking about money, not currency? What's the difference between money and currency?

These are all very interesting questions for linguists. But if you want to have an actual argument about something other than semantics, your discussion has to be grounded in why you care about one term or the other being applied.

Cigarettes are currency, according to my economics professors.

Yes, a good example of prison currency. Another form of currency (in prison but also outside) is sex. And it perfectly fits GP’s “argument” that “some people like it, some people pay with it, some people want more” and all that.

We can either take the “everything is a currency” route but that gets us nowhere, or accept the official, legal, and recognized definition. The “ill conceived” argument based “only” on facts so to speak.

What's your source for an "official, legal, and recognized definition"?

The definition used by economists includes much more than just fiat money. The definition in most dictionaries includes anything used a medium of exchange. Paper money isn't even the most common form of currency these days (beaten by credit cards, checks, and electronic funds transfer).

> What's your source for an "official, legal, and recognized definition"?

Most (important) national central banks as mentioned in my original comment.

Has any national central bank ever declared "ours is the only currency" or "Bitcoin is not a currency"?

As an example the ECB (European Central Bank, central bank for the Eurozone) declared exactly that [0], as I said in my original comment. The ECB, the Fed, the SEC (as you can read from the current HN article) all see crypto as securities and way too volatile at this time (something you don't want in a currency). This may change in the future but it doesn't change the current state of fact. Another important aspect is that accepting it as an official currency means it will have to be regulated like a currency, rather than a security or (mostly) unregulated like today.

The only major central bank that is truly dabbling in crypto is the PBC (that's People's Bank of China) and I think the consensus among people in the sector is that it's really a speculative move, just like most ICOs.

Edited for courtesy. It initially felt like one of the classic methods of arguing a fact on HN: request citations worthy of a PhD thesis for every single word. It's unfortunately all too common here to deter anyone from contradicting.

[0] https://www.pymnts.com/cryptocurrency/2019/eu-central-bank-s...

Sorry, pressed for time. But I don't think missing an unsourced comment from earlier in the thread and asking a question about it deserves that kind of response.

I asked the question hoping to learn something, and I did. So thanks for that, if not for the attitude.

Edited above.

Also because I noticed only now, whether currency is paper, electronic, or any other material is not actually what tells currencies apart. But while classic legal tender is backed by the goods and services of the country that uses it (I know this part is a bit arguable but let's go with it), crypto is more or less backed by nothing but the trust that the blockchain can't be hacked. One bad hack and the value of BTC becomes 0, something very hard to do with a classic currency but catastrophic if it happens. It's also very susceptible to volatile bouts, as seen before. BTC could be a "real" currency but it would be an overall bad one that could not replace the classic currencies in it's current form. It doesn't mean it can't become one but it would have to change in ways that would take it away from the current BTC.

Take a hypothetical CMU (Close04 Monetary Unit) backed by the value of my belongings. That's a token that goes up and down in value as I buy more stuff or my house gets more expensive, or as I issue more tokens (inflation). But it's only as valuable as the trust you have in me and the laws that prop up that trust. If I sell all my stuff and disappear your token is worth nothing and there's very little you can do. There are no protections, there's no legal mechanism that prevents me from selling my stuff. For a coin to become a proper currency it needs some of those props. Unfortunately most people are internet educated in these aspects so they only understand once they get swindled. Every time a cryptocoin is abused, an exchange goes bust, you see a lot of converts and crypto regulation starts to sound better.

Why should governments have monopoly over the medium of exchange that its people use? Why should that power belong to them?

They don't, you can use any medium for exchange. They have monopoly in deciding what is and what isn't an official currency.

As for the rest of your question, the people give them the power as part of the democratic process. Many people realized that whether they like it or not the little protection they get from a government is better than nothing. And it's enough to look at people's reaction when they get swindled out of their completely unregulated coin: ask the government to fix it and punish the swindlers.