It's a new technology, I don't think comparing it to collectible is totally accurate.<p>As a collectible, it can choose to print more of itself if needed, all it takes is a majority to agree to it by altering its protocol (which could also result in a fork).<p>As a collectible, it can also trade itself digitally, but cannot be copied.<p>As a collectible, it keep tracks of all transactions between parties (even though the parties are anonymous).<p>So I mean, it is what it is. It has resemblance with gold, with fiat currencies, and with collectibles, but it's also none of those.<p>And similarly, different cryptocurrencies and blockchain based technologies have similarities with one another, and yet important differences.<p>I think the question that matters more is: could it be used as money?<p>The article says it needs to be usable to pay a central governments taxes, that's just a matter of policy, so it seems like it could.<p>It also says it has to capture dept, well that's an interesting difference here, some other crypto could work as such, but Bitcoin has a fixed limit right now. I don't know if money needs to capture dept, that's what it does now, it didn't always.<p>And so I think I won't agree with this articles definition of money, I recommend people read wikipedias take instead: <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money#Functions" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money#Functions</a><p>> Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context<p>Maybe you don't consider Bitcoin generally accepted quite yet, but it could be, and I think that could make it money if we wanted too. And that's because it has all the functions needed to do so: it can store value, it has a unit of relative measure, and it provides a medium for its exchange.<p>Which leads us to the most important question: Why would we use it as money over the alternatives?