Quote from: MoonShadow on September 23, 2010, 08:05:42 AM

Quote from: Babylon on September 23, 2010, 04:43:57 AM

Quote from: creighto on September 23, 2010, 03:46:27 AM

Quote from: Babylon on September 23, 2010, 03:41:05 AM

I do not consider gold to be money. You can't go and buy most goods and services with gold. Gold is a commodity, dollars are money.

Dollars are currency, not money. Money can be a currency and vice versa, but they are not quite the same thing and not entirely interchangable. And fiat currencies are, by thier very definition, not money. Gold, in our modern world, is still money even though it's no longer a currency.

We're using different definitions then. By your definition Bitcoins are not a currency, since I can't use them for most transactions.

How did you get that out of what I wrote? I didn't even attempt to define what a currency was, I only stated that fiat currency was not, and it isn't. Trying to have a conversation with a person who tells me what I mean to say is always a futile endeavor.

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What makes gold money? What property does it have that, say, plutonium, does not?

Off the top of my head, gold is safe for handling. To be precise, I should say gold is a good money, because it has all of the characteristics of an ideal money to some degree or another...

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article10370.html

"Aristotle on good money

Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. Aristotle discovered, formulated, and analyzed the problem of commensurability. He wondered how ratios for a fair exchange of heterogeneous things could be set. He searched for a principle that makes it possible to equate what is apparently unequal and non-comparable.

Aristotle says that money, as a common measure of everything, makes things commensurable and makes it possible to equalize them. He states that it is in the form of money, a substance that has a telos (purpose), that individuals have devised a unit that supplies a measure on the basis of which just exchange can take place. Aristotle thus maintains that everything can be expressed in the universal equivalent of money. He explains that money was introduced to satisfy the requirement that all items exchanged must be comparable in some way.

Within such frame work, Aristotle defined the characteristics of a good form of money:

1.) It must be durable. Money must stand the test of time and the elements. It must not fade, corrode, or change through time.

2.) It must be portable. Money hold a high amount of 'worth' relative to its weight and size.

3.) It must be divisible. Money should be relatively easy to separate and re-combine without affecting its fundamental characteristics. An extension of this idea is that the item should be 'fungible'. Dictionary.com describes fungible as:

"(esp. of goods) being of such nature or kind as to be freely exchangeable or replaceable, in whole or in part, for another of like nature or kind."

4.) It must have intrinsic value. This value of money should be independent of any other object and contained in the money itself.

(snip)

Fiat Currency

Money must be a good store of value by definition.

Fiat paper currencies are popular at times since they are convenient and can be created at will to please the public. However fiat money fails the all important "intrinsic value" test, as its value is solely derived from legal tender laws. The compliance of such law rests on the credibility and strength of the issuing authority. As we know government and political factions can rise and fall faster than pop stars in some cases. It's no surprise that no fiat money has ever survived through time, and they can never be viable money regardless of technological breakthroughs or other human advances."

(end excerpt)

Bitcoin is a currency because it can be, and is intended to be, used as a medium unit of exchange. Yet it does not require the legal backing of any government; so it is not fiat. Nor does it, presently, have any attribute that would imply a market value outside of the context of it's intended use as a medium of exchange. As has been noted in other threads, Bitcoin is most like a LETS for the Internet, but even that analogy has it's faults.

I think bitcoin is money. Bitcoin is electronic and digital money that you can use in different transaction like paying bills and many more. I guess there some store accept bitcoin as payment of their costumer so I agree that bitcoin is a money.