vonskippy wrote:
Currency, for most nations (including the states) are financial bearer notes of that's nations net worth
It is simple. A value of $1 means I've done something or traded something that the market values $1. It's an IOU issued by the banks and accepted by common consesus among people that turned that consensus into a law.
Before that you had to actually make an effort and catch a rabit in order to trade its pelt for a bottle of fire water.
Same applies to bitcoins, or to turtle shells painted in flourescent orange.
Except, with turtle shells anyone can make them up. With bitcoins you can't make them up, you have to calculate them and that costs certain resources, hence their value. Not just value as in electricity used, but value decided by someone to trust the nature of those SHA hashes and use them as "financial bearer notes of certain value".
And with "mainstream" currency, anyone in a bank, with sufficient privilege, can access a terminal and add a few numbers to the balance. Oh, wait, but if they do that it's called Quantitative Easing. Silly me.
Try doing QE with bitcoins.