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No one treats Bitcoin as a currency. It’s treated as an investment vehicle. And the reason behind that is obvious. Something whose value may double in a month

No one treats Bitcoin as a currency. It’s treated as an investment vehicle. And the reason behind that is obvious. Something whose value may double in a month or whose value may halve within weeks is a terrible currency. If I expect it’s value to increase then I would be a fool to spend it. If I expect it’s value to drop I would be a fool to accept it. Cryptocurrencies are anything but currencies.

option 6y ago
I grew up in Ukraine where my parents were earning and spending hryvna (local currency, high inflation) while saving in USD (much more stable). And a big value prop in favor of US dollar was its immunity to local country’s politics. Bitcoin has a potential to serve as that kind of saving “currency” a lot of people actually need.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tekkk 6y ago
  Not to burst your bubble but assets with extreme volatility, like bitcoin, are not suitable for saving purposes. Investment maybe, but not saving. I assume "saving" purpose in this case means that it withholds its value while being easily liquidable. If you on the other hand have a long saving window so you can tolerate huge swings in the price of the bitcoin (or other cryptocurrency) then the question arises why not diversify your investments like regular people and buy ETFs or other assets? Maybe buying ETFs is harder than buying bitcoins, but in general the idea is (I assume) the same. However, what I feel most people are allured by with bitcoin is its random price movements where out of nowhere its price surges up and creates a total hysteria in the market. I myself heavily dislike assets which price is mainly driven by emotional rationale and while bitcoin's idea may be good, I would not suggest anyone to put their savings in bitcoin. It would seem to encourage people to treat markets with magical thinking where the prices are set by otherworldly powers and not as tied to the revenue stream that is generated by the said asset.
  - bitxbitxbitcoin 6y ago
    Despite the crazy year, bitcoin still has less extreme volatility than some actual country's currencies. So for that small percentage of the world, bitcoin is a better "currency" too - besides for obvious things like local brick and mortar acceptance.
    - tekkk 6y ago
      Sure but the de facto standard way of dealing with this issue is storing cash in a well-established fiat currency, like US dollar. Although I'm not sure what are you implying. I would assume buying US dollars is as easy as buying bitcoins in most cases. And more accepted too. The only problem being having to have either a bank account or physical notes somewhere stored.
tshaddox 6y ago
Isn’t it impossible for the market value to change without both a buyer and a seller?
- arthurcolle 6y ago
  This is solved on the vendor and the buyer side by using "acceptable thresholds of difference" that can be specified with a configuration file. For example, Coinbase Commerce uses this mechanism.
hombre_fatal 6y ago
I use Bitcoin where ever possible, so your opening claim is wrong. I've been banned from Paypal. I've run into many verification issues over the last decade with banks because I have no proof of residency once my driver's license expired. Like physical cash, it doesn't need to be superior in all ways to be useful at all.
- rualca 6y ago
  > I use Bitcoin where ever possible, so your opening claim is wrong. Just because a random guy barters bitcoins for goods/services, that by no means implies that bitcoin is anything close to money. There is a very specific definition of what money is, and bitcoin's volatility alone rules it completely out.
  - newdude116 6y ago
    Well bitcoin is as much money as FIAT money, except if you consider money credit. Than indeed, bitcoin would not be money.
    - bluedevil2k 6y ago
      The US government would not accept BTC as payment for anything, so it is definitely NOT a fiat money.
      - phpwutz 6y ago
        The actual only criteria of fiat money I learned in austrian high school was "government will accept taxes in that currency". We have quiet a long history of taxes here, ranging from cows or sacks of grain to gold to gold coins to gulden to reichsmark to schilling to euro. Probably a good measure of centuries more than the US (which basically got kickstarted with the UK system at the time). Funnily enough, the above definition was the only thing holding true through the centuries. Thing is, if your government accepts taxes in a certain currency (even if it's a foreign one, that's perfectly fine too) it creates a stability by itself which fosters the usability (call it user friendlyness if you like) of the currency. In that sense, I'm fairly sure that unless you are personal friends with the president you cannot pay your taxes in Euro the same way you cannot pay them in ₿, Pesos or ¥ because the currency the US claims their taxes in is USD. Please prove me wrong or gib a better definition if I'm wrong :) Happy New Year everyone!
im_down_w_otp 6y ago
Technically speaking, it's also a terrible investment vehicle for those same reasons. It's a fantastic parlor game of speculation though, where the point is the volatility.
- thebean11 6y ago
  It's volatile, but the overwhelming trend has been upwards. Historically it's a great investment if you can weather volatility
  - bluedevil2k 6y ago
    > overwhelming trend has been upwards You’re cherry picking your price analysis time period. Last year I could have said “BTC has trended down tremendously the last 2 years” and I’d have been right as well.
    - thebean11 6y ago
      I'm looking a lot further back than two years. What I said is true even if you ignore the current run up. If you want to make the opposite argument, that it has a downward trend, you have to cherry pick a fairly small period.
    - darawk 6y ago
      This is a pretty silly comment. It's you that's cherry picking. The overall trend of Bitcoin over its lifetime has been up. Any complete analysis of its time series would tell you that. Buying at any point in its history would have been a good idea.
      - bluedevil2k 6y ago
        This is the same argument Wirecard shareholders always made.
        darawk 6y ago
StavrosK 6y ago
This is only true if everyone using the currency agreed completely on its future value. Currently, some people think it'll tank and sell, and others think it'll rise and buy.
hnracer 6y ago
You can just hedge your exposure on a futures exchange and still use BTC to transact but be unexposed to any price movements. Although doing that is very complicated and defeats the purpose of an easy to use alternative to centralized cash.
- bostonsre 6y ago
  That sounds like it could be a PITA for everyday people tho.
  - hnracer 6y ago
    Indeed but I wonder if one could build a platform that does this behind the scenes. User sends BTC to the online wallet, and the site hedges on behalf of the user on one of the liquid future exchanges, locking in the prevailing BTC price. People can make payments out of this online wallet with just as much ease as they're currently doing. Then they have an easy to use digital cash without any price risk. The site charges a small fee for the service of derisking the holdings. This does seem to solve a real user pain point (risk and the complexity of hedging) and benefits from scale economies.
yunesj 6y ago
> No one treats Bitcoin as a currency. ... And the reason behind that is obvious. Something whose value may double in a month or whose value may halve within weeks is a terrible currency. Nope. I don't buy things in crypto only because of the reporting burden. Every cup of coffee bought with crypto has to be reported on a tax return.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- christiansakai 6y ago
  I didn’t know this is the case. Source?
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    https://www.irs.gov/irb/2014-16_IRB#NOT-2014-21 https://www.irs.gov/irb/2014-16_IRB#NOT-2014-21 It's reported as a security - other, which is laid out like the stock trades 1099. Your taxable amount is the difference in price between what you paid for the currency and what you "sold" it for (both in USD).
- px43 6y ago
  [deleted by user]
  - kens 6y ago
    > I've been advised that there's an income tax exemption for "hobby income" ... up to 10k USD per year If you're talking about the US, I think you're wrong: you need to declare all your hobby income, and since 2018, you can't deduct hobby expenses. See e.g. https://www.creditkarma.com/tax/i/hobby-income-taxed https://www.creditkarma.com/tax/i/hobby-income-taxed https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/self-employment-taxes/4-tax-tips-for-money-making-hobbies/L89qz1GNj https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/self-employment-taxes/4...
    - px43 6y ago
ojhughes 6y ago
Buying drugs with BTC is very widespread and probably what fuelled the initial adoption. How is that anything but a currency?
- almost_usual 6y ago
  So buying drugs in 2010 makes it a currency, gotcha.
  - ojhughes 6y ago
    Last time I checked drugs were still pretty popular in 2020 and no one wants to hang around big Daves dirty house to buy some weed
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
      Monero is used now. Not Bitcoin.
      - sn_master 6y ago
        Most of Monero is actually paid for in Bitcoin via online exchanges. WH stopped doing auto-exchange just few weeks ago, but many other exchanges are still up with barely any kind of validation, not even an e-mail.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  By that logic, Tide is now a currency.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
thelittleone 6y ago
"No one treats Bitcoin as a currency. It’s treated as an investment vehicle." I, for one, have and will continue to use it as a currency in some cases. I'm quite sure I'm not the only one.
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  I’ll call BS on this - are you actively selling it to buy things online? And you buying BTC when you have spare money in checking accounts? Is your turnover like 10-20%? I’m guessing you’re a buy and hold person with BTC, which makes you an investor in it.
  - colinmhayes 6y ago
    I'll admit that I do buy bitcoin for use as currency. It is still the easiest way to remain pseudonymous digitally. To me it's similar to gold. Most people use it as an investment vehicle, some use it because it's an efficient way to store value that is hard to track.
  - thelittleone 6y ago
    I've accepted payments for a holiday rental via Bitcoin, some of which I've used to purchase other items.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  To a first order approximation, nobody uses bitcoin as a currency. There are a handful of enthusiasts who might use it such as yourself, but you are in the absolute minority of bitcoin holders. HODL would not be the meme it was if the goal was to actually use bitcoin in day to day transactions.
  - thelittleone 6y ago
    This is an opinion presented as a fact. A source would be helpful.
- icedchai 6y ago
mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
Bitcoin is volatile because it is not yet widely used and the market for is still relatively small. Yes, people are investing to speculate on its price, but they are also investing because it has a fixed supply that cannot be inflated away by governments. Take a look at the U.S. M2 money supply YTD and the DXY and consider what happens next as more wealthy investors begin to recognize this advantage inherent in Bitcoin.
- majewsky 6y ago
  Wealthy investors are exactly the kind of people who (through lobbying) designed the current financial system.
  - mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
    That's true, how does it relate to what I was saying?
sn_master 6y ago
> No one treats Bitcoin as a currency. Ask the people who bought hundreds of millions of dollars (without inflation) of drugs on Silk Road, Empire Market, White House Market etc since 2013 until now. I am making up hundreds of millions based on the seized Bitcoins by the FBI, the real number probably exceeded Billions a long time ago already. The WannaCry and other ransomware folks don't sit on their millions of dollars of extorted Monero/Bitcoin either. They buy cars and fancy things with them, and that's one reason many of them got arrested. Few real world examples of scams against everyday folks: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=canada+bitcoin+scam https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=canada+bitcoin+... Safeway now has BTC ATMs and we we'll be able to drop "canada" from the query and get good results from the US soon.
reiderrider 6y ago
I also use Bitcoin as a currency (via Coinbase). I love the reactions. It’s not commonly accepted in my area so I’m only using it for haircuts and holiday bonuses, but would gladly buy more with it. Excited about Etherium’s DApps but having trouble creating viable ones in my industry (insurance). BTC’s transaction cost is worrisome (who is spending $6 in transactions fees for small purchases). Monero has some serious advantages over BTC (privacy and transaction costs).
- drschwabe 6y ago
  Encourage your current 'Bitcoin friendly vendors' to accept Lightning network payments. Your Bitcoin tx fees can then be fractions of cents.
hunter-gatherer 6y ago
My spouse in European and before her immigration to the US happened I would send her bitcoin or litecoin when she needed money (she was in school). It worked despite the volatility. She'd tell me when she needs some, I'd send it and she'd sell. Total flight time was ~10 minutes. Super useful for sending amounts that are less than 200 dollars.
drschwabe 6y ago
As a freelance programmer/UX designer I offer my clients to pay in Bitcoin (yes, as a currency). So far over the course of my decade-ish long career most invoices are paid via fiat but actually my record sale was paid in Bitcoin. The client paid for approx 500 consulting hours in BTC (and is still a client to this day, paying for many more hours than that batch in subsequent purchases albeit sometimes in fiat). I prefer Bitcoin over government fiat currency when doing large transactions like that because of the risk that a bank will freeze the funds or hold the transaction arbitrarily without warning and on either side of the equation; ie- you don't know if the party sending or receiving may be subject to the freeze.
glenstein 6y ago
>No one treats Bitcoin as a currency. I wouldn't necessarily say that most of its market cap is coming from people treating it like a currency. But I most definitely think it is effectively a currency in some places and in some special circumstances. I take it that the point of the post is that, by and large, due to the fact that the blockchain is public and analyzed and mining is conceivably traceable to special purpose hardware, it's not for many practical purposes usable as a stateless, institution-free vehicle for transactions. I'm not sure how to square the circle on this, but it certainly is a currency in some cases.

option 6y ago

I grew up in Ukraine where my parents were earning and spending hryvna (local currency, high inflation) while saving in USD (much more stable). And a big value prop in favor of US dollar was its immunity to local country’s politics. Bitcoin has a potential to serve as that kind of saving “currency” a lot of people actually need.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tekkk 6y ago
Not to burst your bubble but assets with extreme volatility, like bitcoin, are not suitable for saving purposes. Investment maybe, but not saving. I assume "saving" purpose in this case means that it withholds its value while being easily liquidable. If you on the other hand have a long saving window so you can tolerate huge swings in the price of the bitcoin (or other cryptocurrency) then the question arises why not diversify your investments like regular people and buy ETFs or other assets? Maybe buying ETFs is harder than buying bitcoins, but in general the idea is (I assume) the same. However, what I feel most people are allured by with bitcoin is its random price movements where out of nowhere its price surges up and creates a total hysteria in the market. I myself heavily dislike assets which price is mainly driven by emotional rationale and while bitcoin's idea may be good, I would not suggest anyone to put their savings in bitcoin. It would seem to encourage people to treat markets with magical thinking where the prices are set by otherworldly powers and not as tied to the revenue stream that is generated by the said asset.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 6y ago
  Despite the crazy year, bitcoin still has less extreme volatility than some actual country's currencies. So for that small percentage of the world, bitcoin is a better "currency" too - besides for obvious things like local brick and mortar acceptance.
  - tekkk 6y ago
    Sure but the de facto standard way of dealing with this issue is storing cash in a well-established fiat currency, like US dollar. Although I'm not sure what are you implying. I would assume buying US dollars is as easy as buying bitcoins in most cases. And more accepted too. The only problem being having to have either a bank account or physical notes somewhere stored.

tshaddox 6y ago

Isn’t it impossible for the market value to change without both a buyer and a seller?

arthurcolle 6y ago
This is solved on the vendor and the buyer side by using "acceptable thresholds of difference" that can be specified with a configuration file. For example, Coinbase Commerce uses this mechanism.

hombre_fatal 6y ago

I use Bitcoin where ever possible, so your opening claim is wrong. I've been banned from Paypal. I've run into many verification issues over the last decade with banks because I have no proof of residency once my driver's license expired. Like physical cash, it doesn't need to be superior in all ways to be useful at all.

rualca 6y ago
> I use Bitcoin where ever possible, so your opening claim is wrong. Just because a random guy barters bitcoins for goods/services, that by no means implies that bitcoin is anything close to money. There is a very specific definition of what money is, and bitcoin's volatility alone rules it completely out.
- newdude116 6y ago
  Well bitcoin is as much money as FIAT money, except if you consider money credit. Than indeed, bitcoin would not be money.
  - bluedevil2k 6y ago
    The US government would not accept BTC as payment for anything, so it is definitely NOT a fiat money.
    - phpwutz 6y ago
      The actual only criteria of fiat money I learned in austrian high school was "government will accept taxes in that currency". We have quiet a long history of taxes here, ranging from cows or sacks of grain to gold to gold coins to gulden to reichsmark to schilling to euro. Probably a good measure of centuries more than the US (which basically got kickstarted with the UK system at the time). Funnily enough, the above definition was the only thing holding true through the centuries. Thing is, if your government accepts taxes in a certain currency (even if it's a foreign one, that's perfectly fine too) it creates a stability by itself which fosters the usability (call it user friendlyness if you like) of the currency. In that sense, I'm fairly sure that unless you are personal friends with the president you cannot pay your taxes in Euro the same way you cannot pay them in ₿, Pesos or ¥ because the currency the US claims their taxes in is USD. Please prove me wrong or gib a better definition if I'm wrong :) Happy New Year everyone!

im_down_w_otp 6y ago

Technically speaking, it's also a terrible investment vehicle for those same reasons. It's a fantastic parlor game of speculation though, where the point is the volatility.

thebean11 6y ago
It's volatile, but the overwhelming trend has been upwards. Historically it's a great investment if you can weather volatility
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  > overwhelming trend has been upwards You’re cherry picking your price analysis time period. Last year I could have said “BTC has trended down tremendously the last 2 years” and I’d have been right as well.
  - thebean11 6y ago
    I'm looking a lot further back than two years. What I said is true even if you ignore the current run up. If you want to make the opposite argument, that it has a downward trend, you have to cherry pick a fairly small period.
  - darawk 6y ago
    This is a pretty silly comment. It's you that's cherry picking. The overall trend of Bitcoin over its lifetime has been up. Any complete analysis of its time series would tell you that. Buying at any point in its history would have been a good idea.
    - bluedevil2k 6y ago
      This is the same argument Wirecard shareholders always made.
      - darawk 6y ago

StavrosK 6y ago

This is only true if everyone using the currency agreed completely on its future value. Currently, some people think it'll tank and sell, and others think it'll rise and buy.

hnracer 6y ago

You can just hedge your exposure on a futures exchange and still use BTC to transact but be unexposed to any price movements. Although doing that is very complicated and defeats the purpose of an easy to use alternative to centralized cash.

bostonsre 6y ago
That sounds like it could be a PITA for everyday people tho.
- hnracer 6y ago
  Indeed but I wonder if one could build a platform that does this behind the scenes. User sends BTC to the online wallet, and the site hedges on behalf of the user on one of the liquid future exchanges, locking in the prevailing BTC price. People can make payments out of this online wallet with just as much ease as they're currently doing. Then they have an easy to use digital cash without any price risk. The site charges a small fee for the service of derisking the holdings. This does seem to solve a real user pain point (risk and the complexity of hedging) and benefits from scale economies.

yunesj 6y ago

> No one treats Bitcoin as a currency. ... And the reason behind that is obvious. Something whose value may double in a month or whose value may halve within weeks is a terrible currency. Nope. I don't buy things in crypto only because of the reporting burden. Every cup of coffee bought with crypto has to be reported on a tax return.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
christiansakai 6y ago
I didn’t know this is the case. Source?
- freeone3000 6y ago
  https://www.irs.gov/irb/2014-16_IRB#NOT-2014-21 https://www.irs.gov/irb/2014-16_IRB#NOT-2014-21 It's reported as a security - other, which is laid out like the stock trades 1099. Your taxable amount is the difference in price between what you paid for the currency and what you "sold" it for (both in USD).
px43 6y ago
[deleted by user]
- kens 6y ago
  > I've been advised that there's an income tax exemption for "hobby income" ... up to 10k USD per year If you're talking about the US, I think you're wrong: you need to declare all your hobby income, and since 2018, you can't deduct hobby expenses. See e.g. https://www.creditkarma.com/tax/i/hobby-income-taxed https://www.creditkarma.com/tax/i/hobby-income-taxed https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/self-employment-taxes/4-tax-tips-for-money-making-hobbies/L89qz1GNj https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/self-employment-taxes/4...
  - px43 6y ago

ojhughes 6y ago

Buying drugs with BTC is very widespread and probably what fuelled the initial adoption. How is that anything but a currency?

almost_usual 6y ago
So buying drugs in 2010 makes it a currency, gotcha.
- ojhughes 6y ago
  Last time I checked drugs were still pretty popular in 2020 and no one wants to hang around big Daves dirty house to buy some weed
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
    Monero is used now. Not Bitcoin.
    - sn_master 6y ago
      Most of Monero is actually paid for in Bitcoin via online exchanges. WH stopped doing auto-exchange just few weeks ago, but many other exchanges are still up with barely any kind of validation, not even an e-mail.
ashtonkem 6y ago
By that logic, Tide is now a currency.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

thelittleone 6y ago

"No one treats Bitcoin as a currency. It’s treated as an investment vehicle." I, for one, have and will continue to use it as a currency in some cases. I'm quite sure I'm not the only one.

bluedevil2k 6y ago
I’ll call BS on this - are you actively selling it to buy things online? And you buying BTC when you have spare money in checking accounts? Is your turnover like 10-20%? I’m guessing you’re a buy and hold person with BTC, which makes you an investor in it.
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  I'll admit that I do buy bitcoin for use as currency. It is still the easiest way to remain pseudonymous digitally. To me it's similar to gold. Most people use it as an investment vehicle, some use it because it's an efficient way to store value that is hard to track.
- thelittleone 6y ago
  I've accepted payments for a holiday rental via Bitcoin, some of which I've used to purchase other items.
ashtonkem 6y ago
To a first order approximation, nobody uses bitcoin as a currency. There are a handful of enthusiasts who might use it such as yourself, but you are in the absolute minority of bitcoin holders. HODL would not be the meme it was if the goal was to actually use bitcoin in day to day transactions.
- thelittleone 6y ago
  This is an opinion presented as a fact. A source would be helpful.
icedchai 6y ago

mandelbrotwurst 6y ago

Bitcoin is volatile because it is not yet widely used and the market for is still relatively small. Yes, people are investing to speculate on its price, but they are also investing because it has a fixed supply that cannot be inflated away by governments. Take a look at the U.S. M2 money supply YTD and the DXY and consider what happens next as more wealthy investors begin to recognize this advantage inherent in Bitcoin.

majewsky 6y ago
Wealthy investors are exactly the kind of people who (through lobbying) designed the current financial system.
- mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
  That's true, how does it relate to what I was saying?

sn_master 6y ago

> No one treats Bitcoin as a currency. Ask the people who bought hundreds of millions of dollars (without inflation) of drugs on Silk Road, Empire Market, White House Market etc since 2013 until now. I am making up hundreds of millions based on the seized Bitcoins by the FBI, the real number probably exceeded Billions a long time ago already. The WannaCry and other ransomware folks don't sit on their millions of dollars of extorted Monero/Bitcoin either. They buy cars and fancy things with them, and that's one reason many of them got arrested. Few real world examples of scams against everyday folks: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=canada+bitcoin+scam https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=canada+bitcoin+... Safeway now has BTC ATMs and we we'll be able to drop "canada" from the query and get good results from the US soon.

reiderrider 6y ago

I also use Bitcoin as a currency (via Coinbase). I love the reactions. It’s not commonly accepted in my area so I’m only using it for haircuts and holiday bonuses, but would gladly buy more with it. Excited about Etherium’s DApps but having trouble creating viable ones in my industry (insurance). BTC’s transaction cost is worrisome (who is spending $6 in transactions fees for small purchases). Monero has some serious advantages over BTC (privacy and transaction costs).

drschwabe 6y ago
Encourage your current 'Bitcoin friendly vendors' to accept Lightning network payments. Your Bitcoin tx fees can then be fractions of cents.

hunter-gatherer 6y ago

My spouse in European and before her immigration to the US happened I would send her bitcoin or litecoin when she needed money (she was in school). It worked despite the volatility. She'd tell me when she needs some, I'd send it and she'd sell. Total flight time was ~10 minutes. Super useful for sending amounts that are less than 200 dollars.

drschwabe 6y ago

As a freelance programmer/UX designer I offer my clients to pay in Bitcoin (yes, as a currency). So far over the course of my decade-ish long career most invoices are paid via fiat but actually my record sale was paid in Bitcoin. The client paid for approx 500 consulting hours in BTC (and is still a client to this day, paying for many more hours than that batch in subsequent purchases albeit sometimes in fiat). I prefer Bitcoin over government fiat currency when doing large transactions like that because of the risk that a bank will freeze the funds or hold the transaction arbitrarily without warning and on either side of the equation; ie- you don't know if the party sending or receiving may be subject to the freeze.

glenstein 6y ago

>No one treats Bitcoin as a currency. I wouldn't necessarily say that most of its market cap is coming from people treating it like a currency. But I most definitely think it is effectively a currency in some places and in some special circumstances. I take it that the point of the post is that, by and large, due to the fact that the blockchain is public and analyzed and mining is conceivably traceable to special purpose hardware, it's not for many practical purposes usable as a stateless, institution-free vehicle for transactions. I'm not sure how to square the circle on this, but it certainly is a currency in some cases.