Well sure, it does both. There are (theoretical) systems that allow cryptographically secure transactions to take place without so much thrashing though. Even verifiable offline transactions.
Of course bitcoin's major advantage is that it's already here and working.
Re:Top Bitcoin questions I’ve been asked
by dllthomas on Thursday April 03, 2014 @04:13AM
(#7521534)
"Well sure, it does both."
Certainly. Using it to distribute the currency, before there's the critical mass of people wanting to make transactions enough to pay your miners seems a perfectly good fit once you're already needing to mine, though.
"There are (theoretical) systems that allow cryptographically secure transactions to take place without so much thrashing though. Even verifiable offline transactions."
Verifiable offline transactions with no centralization? Can you link to some?
>> Verifiable offline transactions with no centralization? Can you link to some?
Nope, because they all have centralisation, as I said, the thrashing is the tradeoff!
Mining isn't (primarily) for currency issuance - it's decentralization of secure transaction processing. Which still isn't something everyone considers important, of course.