"trading tuna" is just money and is not food
and yet it is clearly a worse thing to have than eating tuna
that's the point of the story
Discussion
I think what the story shows is thst when there isn't good money available, people will use any halfway viable thing in its place. And it's also basically a demonstration Gresham's law -- given the same face value, the out of date tuna will trade & the good tuna will be saved.
But tuna just isn't a good form of money.
A good form of money is something that doesn't expire, is more scarce, is more divisible, is more portable, is verifiable, & is censorship proof. Bitcoin is better at all of the above than any other money to ever exist. What would the bootstrapping of a new monetary system look like?
"when there isn't good money available, people will use any halfway viable thing in its place"
Congrats, you've explained why Bitcoin (and rotten tuna) can have a nonzero market price
What are the features of a good money? If you can define money properly then it becomes obvious why bitcoin is the best money to ever exist.
Please give me your list of the basic features required for a thing to be a good money and explain why each feature is needed.
"If you can define money properly then it becomes obvious why bitcoin is the best money to ever exist."
Go on then, define money properly.
Also, if you could give some proof that the second part of your claim is correct, and that Bitcoins do indeed exist, that would be most welcome.
I asked YOU to identify the key characteristics of money. If you are so certain that you are right, you should be able to that.
Your acknowledgement that money has characteristics at all is an admission that I am correct.
"A characteristic is an aspect of an existent. It is not a disembodied, Platonic universal. Just as a concept cannot mean existents apart from their identity, so it cannot mean identities apart from that which exists. Existence is Identity."
Leonard Peikoff, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology p.106
Money is a thing that one person gives to someone else as payment.
Why does it have to be a thing?
Because if it is not a thing, I cannot give it to someone else.
Rather than give you money, I can teach you to play the electric bass guitar. You might accept that service as payment, but my "lesson" is not money except in a very loose metaphorical sense. You are unlikely to be able to buy groceries by transferring to the clerk the first electric bass guitar lesson which you already received from me.
Bitcoin is not money because Bitcoin is not a thing. Perhaps like my electric bass guitar lesson it is tremendously valuable. Perhaps it is worthless. But it cannot be money any more than trade can be potatoes.
Is a stored jpeg a thing? Can you send it to others?
If you could be certain that said jpeg could only be controlled by one person at a time & could not be copied, could it be used for trade?