Crypto: Is it Currency, or Money?

What's the difference between money and currency? Think about it for a minute... is there a difference? Are the two synonymous?

And where does Cryptocurrency sit in this discussion?

I'm going to lean on the expertise of Mike Maloney who's video series "The Hidden Secrets of Money" is a really interesting watch and can be found on Youtube. Here's what Mike says:

CURRENCY IS:

A lot of this stuff is common sense:

Medium of Exchange: We buy stuf with it so therefore its a medium of exhange.
A Unit of Account: Also pretty easy - if its got numbers on it, it can be used as a unit of account.
Portable: Can you imagine if barrels of oil were currency? Ugh! Thankfully we can fold currency in our wallet!
Durable: Currency is durable enough. Especially since they came out with new plastic/polymer bills.
Divisible: I can make change!
Fungible: This is a funny sort of word. Sounds like something you got in 'Nam after spending too long in the jungle. It actually just means my dollar is worth the same as yours. If we trade dollar bills, we both end up with the same amount that we started with.

MONEY is:

Looks pretty similar so far right? Now here's where things get interesting! Money has one quality that currency does not!

Money is also a

Store of Value has to do with Purchasing Power... how much bread/gasoline/fidget spinners can I buy with my single dollar? The problem with currency, especially when it is fiat currency is that the purchasing power degrades over time. And what is fiat currency? Its simple currency that is not backed by any commodity. Fiat currency is money
a government has decided is currency. There have been THOUSANDS of fiat currencies over the centuries, and 100% of them have failed (ie returned to zero, the value of the paper they're printed on).

The major problem with fiat currencies - other than the fact that your dollar was worth less today than it was yesterday - is that more can just be printed of it. The more dollars in circulation means the less each individual unit is worth. The purchasing power of fiat currencies drop as more supply exists. Gold and silver hold their purchasing power - you can't just print more gold! In order to add to the current supply you have to mine it, which takes time and resources. One of the ways to look at the value of gold and silver is that its a store of time - the most precious resource - because some miner needed to go into a hole and dig it up, locking precious time into the metal.

So Is Cryptocurrency money?

The answer is "sometimes" and "maybe" in this blogger's humble opinion. Crypto Security Guru John McAfee had a real zinger when the CEO of JP Morgan Jamie Dimond called Bitcoin a fraud. He retorted on CNBC: "I'm a bitcoin miner. We create bitcoins. It costs over $1,000 per coin to create a bitcoin. What does it cost to create a U.S. dollar? Which one is the fraud? Because it costs whatever the paper costs, but it costs me and other miners over $1,000 per coin. It's called proof of work."

Two problems arise however:

1. What if a solar flare wrapped the earth in an electro magnetic pulse that eradicated and erased all computers everywhere. Gold and silver would be fine, but is Bitcoin "DURABLE" enough to be considered money? Its a pretty extreme example, but it leaves our store of wealth vulnerable to act of war (ie Nukes that generate EMPs) or crappy solar weather.

2. What if companies just keep making more altcoins? Even Steemit could just print more STEEM endlessly. You've seen some crypto with circulating supplies of 50billion + units.. and their value rarely approaches a penny. Whats to stop them from "minting" a hundred billion more? By Maloney's definition crypto could just be another fiat currency, backed by nothing, despite "proof of work".

If you have a chance, you should watch Mike's entire series. Maybe there's something to be said for taking a blended approach to how you're going to build your wealth. Get rich off Crypto, invest in silver and gold, and wait for the bombs to drop and the sun to have a hairy conniption! Then you can buy a whole town in gold, sit on a throne, and enjoy the Apocalypse! :-)

But what do I know? I'm just a Mook. What do you think @suppoman?

Cheers,
Stanimal