Bitcoin trades for legal tender cash and bank credits, which can be converted into legal tender cash. Works of copyright also trade for legal tender cash and bank credits.
Speculating in copyright is a normal part of trade. Speculation in Bitcoin amounts to speculation in copyright.
In Anglo-American jurisprudence, property means right of ownership and never the thing owned. Property means the right to possess, the right to give away, the right to destroy, the right to recover upon theft.
In trade, people buy and sell property. They don't buy and sell things. When you buy milk from the market with cash, you buy the right to own the milk and part of that right is possession.
Yet, there are many times when people buy property, or right of ownership and never take possession. Few ever take possession of their stock certificates when they buy property in a firm as parceled in stock. Landlords never take possession of their rental property. Their tenants do.
Without doubt, Bitcoin is not "a peer-to-peer electronic cash system." Bitcoins aren't "electronic cash" nor are Bitcoins cash at all.
Cash requires bank credits. Cash is paper that evidences bank credits. Cash arises as an artifact of banking.
Whether legal tender or not, cash is denominated bank notes circulating as evidence of deposits. Deposits are bank credits. Denomination means named multiples of the unit of bank credits, such as a ten dollar bill, a twenty dollar bill or a one-hundred dollar bill.
Today, Americans have cash. Specifically, Americans have legal tender cash. So too do Canadians have legal tender cash, the Brits, all those of the Eurozone, the Japanese, and so on. Legal tender cash is centralized bank notes circulating in perpetuity. Seemingly, legal tender cash does the work of money, but never is cash actual money.
Money is coined metal by weight and fineness. The Romans said so. It's their word. Even the U.S. Constitution supports that concept.
When money existed, money gave its possessor currency. Money doesn't exist and hasn't for many decades.
Always, money can exist without banking and government. Cash only can exist with banking and banks. Never can cash exist without banking and banks. Not only does legal tender cash need banking, but also legal tender cash needs government.
Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital protocol for transferring property of copyright. Any specific Bitcoin is an arrangement of electromagnetic impressions — bits in a pattern — on a recording medium. Each Bitcoin is software with built-in digital copy protection that prohibits duplication.
In essence, that is all any specific Bitcoin is. Any Bitcoin, identified by its blockchain, is little more than a work of art.
As such, any specific Bitcoin identified by its blockchain falls under copyright. The copyright in Bitcoin gives anyone exclusive right to prevent duplication of a specific work of Bitcoin as designated by its blockchain.
Copyright gives the owner of a specific bitcoin, property in that bitcoin, or the right of ownership. Anyone who owns bitcoin can make copies of that bitcoin for himself in various digital storage media. However, when someone sells their copyright in bitcoin in a purchase and sale, the ability to use any copies gets lost owing to the Bitcoin blockchain protocol.
Currency means bearer negotiability. It doesn't mean cash. Bearer negotiability means the property (right of ownership) goes with possession. No need exists to prove title.
So when you buy milk at the Quik-E-Mart with cash, you don't first prove to the cashier that you own the cash. The cashier readily takes your cash and lets you walk out the store with the milk.
In a purchase and sale of cash for milk, the agents of the owners of the market buy property in cash and sell property in milk. You sell your property in cash and buy property in milk.
With Bitcoin, even though people seemingly are anonymous, the software everyone must use to manage transaction between two parties of trades with Bitcoins exists to proves title in Bitcoins. That is what the block chain mechanism of challenge and proof is all about.
Cash gives anyone currency, which is another way of saying bearer negotiability, precisely because no one needs to prove title to cash before selling cash and buying something with it in a purchase and sale.
Prepaid anonymous debit cards are the closest thing to electronic cash. All cash is evidence of bank deposits. Both cash and deposits are liabilities of bankers. Ask bankers. The smart ones will tell you what I have told you.
Bitcoin is more akin to "prisoner's money." Mostly, Bitcoin gets used to trade contraband in extra-legal purchases and sales. Basically, Bitcoin exists to facilitate heroin dealing where deals get made anonymously through the Internet while delivery gets made through legitimate package delivery services, such as UPS, Fedex, USPS, DHL, Canada Post and the like.
Many have been tricked by the metaphor used to explain Bitcoin, being fooled, nay, suckered into believing Bitcoin is banking-free cash, which is an impossibility, and into believing Bitcoin is money, also an impossibility, as money is coined metal by weight and fineness.
When people trade bitcoin for drugs and drugs for bitcoins, people are bartering. Such bartering is the same as trading a digital movie with copy protection for drugs and drugs for a movie with digital copy protection.
Bitcoin requires banking because no one would want to accept Bitcoin as payment unless also being able to sell Bitcoins for legal tender cash or bank credits of an established banking system. Without others willing to sell cash or bank credits and buy Bitcoins, Bitcoins would be useless.
Bitcoins are as dependent upon banks and banking as any other copyrighted product put on offer for trade in purchases and sales for cash and credit.
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