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Re:Bitcoin and positive vs. normative economics by randallsquared on Sunday December 29, 2013 @09:17AM (#6979573)
No, backing implies that someone has a legal obligation to supply something in exchange for the thing backed. Gold originally backed USD because paper dollars were literally a contract to pay the bearer a certain amount of gold. Gold and USD now have the same sort of relationship that USD and bitcoin do: neither USD nor bitcoin is backed by anything.

Both are still worth something, at the moment, though, which is all you need for an exchange to be possible.

Re:Bitcoin and positive vs. normative economics by ahquresh on Sunday December 29, 2013 @09:51AM (#6979670)
I see, I completely misunderstood what mattm was trying to say then. That makes much more sense.