Smol rant on the lingo of money...

Currency is backed by money.

Money itself has no backing.

If it did, the backer is money, the backee is currency, not money.

Bitcoin is becoming money of the world. Not global currency. Not reserve currency. Not asset (which can appreciate in value), but money (whic measures value).

It is not money yet, except for the community of traders that truly use it as money, isolated from their country's trade and it's money (ie no one).

Again, Bitcoin is not money, it is becoming money.

This is not a blemish on Bitcoin, it is about defining money. Clearing this up helps discussions.

One way to think of money which might help is like this...

1) first define the circle around the economy, eg Australia

2) then look for the token that is ubiquitously accepted and preferred in trade.

In Australia, AUD is money.

In Uzbekistan, AUD is not money.

Bitcoin is not money in either economy.

For the entire world, we have barter, but the closest thing to money is USD. Gold certainly is not world money, because USD by far is preferred.

USD isn't backed by gold. If it was, gold would be money, and USD would be currency (as it once was).

So USD is money of the world, nearly. It certainly is money of USA.

Labelling it money does not award the property of it being good, nor sound. USD like all fiat is unsound money, and shit. "Sound" referring to ease of creating more (hard money vs easy money, DONT SAY SOFT MONEY!🤣)

I could be wrong about the following, and if so, it doesn't change what I've said so far, but I'm not sure if gold was ever world money (as opposed to local money in local trade in multiple communities across the world).

I can't confirm if there ever was a time when there was significant world trade where gold was preferred over bartering the money of each country... When each country has gold as money, international trade was insignificant, I SUSPECT.

As international trade grew, paper trade took over to solve the friction.

If correct, this suggests gold can never serve the world economy as money, it will always need paper.

Bitcoin fixes gold.

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Discussion

Aristole’s answer to what is money question is probably the best cause he addresses the whole, not parts.

chapter 4 of my book untangles that mess by explaining his take.

Should be out end of june

USD is not money, it does not hold value. Treasuries are a better analogy. Money is a store of value, currency is a medium of exchange, the unit of account is a unit of account.

How well it stores value is not a defining feature of money, it's a property related to it's desirability as money, and affects the evolution of which token becomes money.

USD is money despite its flaws, but because of the flaws, will die.

Lyn Alden's book Broken Money makes a nice observation about how the introduction of the telegraph significantly widened the gap between the speed of transaction settlement (paper) and final settlement (gold).

Seems like a good point. And bitcoin restores the balance!

May bitcoin continue to become money

I always call it an "emerging money" when discussing it with noobs. But I tend to say money as shorthand when talking with other Bitcoiners because we usually get it. And we typically use it together like money.

Completely agree, I just think it's important to spell it out because some people don't get it.

I abbreviate too.

Bitcoin adjusts gold but unlike gold it is not yet recognized as gold by the masses of people (despite being better and you fix it) so you just have to wait for the right opportunity. I think this hyperbitcoinization will come naturally in about ten years

Maybe sooner