"I think the jury’s out on how far they’re going to go with cryptocurrencies acting as money. Right now, I don’t see it because, in my studies of monetary history, it’s always been something tangible. People want something tangible. Somebody has to sort it out if it [cryptocurrency] ever becomes money. But I have questions because historically, money should be something that’s tangible, but it should be legal, as long as there’s no fraud."
With due respect to Ron Paul, he's wrong here.
Before Satoshi, these combinations were possible:
| Gold/Silver | Tangible | Decentralised | Trustless |
| Paper bank notes | Intangible | Centralised | Trust required |
| Electronic banking | Intangible | Centralised | Trust required |
The only reason to make money from something tangible is to make sure it has a limited supply (here, paper bank notes actually fail, as their value is in a printed number, not in the value of the paper the number is printed on). Satoshi's design for cryptocurrency achieves a limited supply for something intangible, decentralised and trustless. That's the significant achievement of Satoshi's design.
So credit where it's due to Ron Paul, at least he popularised the idea of sound money in politics. But he's so close to the issue that he's forgotten what the reasoning was behind choosing something tangible to begin with.
