The process may be an online comparable to mining for gold, but gold is hard money. Bitcoins are not hard money.
What's the definition of "hard money" ?
It's not "physical", otherwise printed dollars would be called so.
Bitcoins are a commodity, and can be compared to gold. Actually, it's even better, since one day the monetary base will freeze. Gold natural reserves won't run out so soon.
"Hard money" is a commodity that is 1) durable 2) divisable and 3) difficult to fake and 4) difficult to produce.
Bitcoins are a currency, but neither are they backed by a commodity standard of any kind, nor do they represent an obligation (debt) of a bank or government like a fait currency. Money can also be a currency, if they are minted into a standard denomination, but money does not have to be a currency. But a paper currency is not money; at best, paper currencies are a symbol and substitute for the money. Even this mush has not been the case anywhere in the world since the Swiss were pressured into dropping the gold standard.