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Both are central functions of banks, debt is not the main one.

Saying that bitcoin allows users to act as their own banks is like saying a mattress with your cash under it is your own bank. It's not meaningful in anyway. Debt is the meaningful differentiator.

No, ability to issue a controlled lot of physical currency is the meaningful differentiator, which is why the relation to banks is irrelevant.

I can buy $1 worth of Bitcoin, declare it ErikCoin, acceptable only in my stores at a 1/1,000,000 denomination, and I instantly "minted" $1,000,000 in cryptocurrency, using only the Bitcoin blockchain.

Bitcoin doesn't let people be banks, it let's people be the mint.

How is that different from virtual currency in video games?

- Blizzard can't wipe your balance

- You can't destroy anyone's balance after you've issued them currency

- Balances are publicly verifiable

- Balances can be stored in one's mind

... lots of things. Tons of affordances differ from a game currency.

But you can just choose to stop accepting ErikCoin at any time right?

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