Many people pays their loans in Yens or other currencies just to save money. Argentinians for example are best know for putting all savings in american dollars.

People also put their savings in Apple stock. That doesn't make it currency...

Sorry to correct you: Currency is something that is used as a medium of exchange; money. Anything can be a currency from day to night.

Multinational corporations use foreign currencies as a hedge against exchange rate fluctuations. Speculators win and lose big on bets re: exchange rates. Owning foreign currency can make sense for a variety of reasons.

And while I don't live on the Internet, I do conduct some of my economic life on the Internet: buying, selling, consuming, and creating.

> Multinational corporations use foreign currencies as a hedge against exchange rate fluctuations

Because they have business there, so in a sense they do live there.

> And while I don't live on the Internet, I do conduct some of my economic life on the Internet: buying, selling, consuming, and creating.

Maybe that's the logic leap I have to take to use bitcoins: I don't consider that I buy things from the Internet, I use the Internet to buy things from stores. Maybe when we have a Snow-Crash-type Metaverse I'll start using virtual currencies :)

You don't live in a gold mine either, but I bet you wouldn't mind owning gold. Same thing with Bitcoin, no?

I can't go into a store and buy a suit with gold, so it's not a useful medium of exchange for me. If gold, or bitcoins, fell out of the sky and into my lap, I certainly wouldn't mind. But given the same value of gold, bitcoins, or dollars, dollars tend to be the most convenient for me.

the only issue with them is that little by little they lose more and more of their purchasing power so you should either invest or use all immediately

I don't own gold either.

I can't wait to see the face of doomsayers once Planetary Resources (or other company) starts mining gold from asteroids. I'm sure Gold's intrinsic value will hold up, with the increased supply...