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Surely currencies are nothing but tools for exchange, and their value is as a medium of exchange?

Most currencies are also used to store wealth and invest. Bitcoin can be, and is, used like that, but I think that use of it is foolish.

I see "bitcoin" as a currency not too unlike I see "paypal" as a currency. That is, not particularly.

> but I think that use of it is foolish.

Why foolish? Risky, but not necessarily foolish. The bitcoin exchange rate has been going up all the time. Even with simple strategies such as dollar-cost averaging you would probably have done pretty well within the last couple of years.

I think its foolish because your investment is based on something that you have no control over, nor any ability to rationally judge risk. The US government could collapse the value of bitcoin in an instant by declaring it illegal. It's probably only a matter of time until they do this actually. Unless you have a good reason to think this won't be for another X years, investing is a bad bet.

It probably depends on whom you ask and what the currency is. Something like Bitcoin could be seen as very subversive. Money is an asset/liability relationship, there is no intrinsic value in a fiat currency.

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