Are Currency and Money the Same thing - page 2.

johnj

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From wiki,

Money

Quote

Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context.[1][2][3] The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past, a standard of deferred payment.[4][5] Any kind of object or secure verifiable record that fulfills these functions can serve as money.

Currency

Quote

In economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply. The other part of a nation's money supply consists of bank deposits (sometimes called deposit money), ownership of which can be transferred by means of cheques, debit cards, or other forms of money transfer. Deposit money and currency are money in the sense that both are acceptable as a means of payment.

So from this I'd gather that currency is the actual thing used for exchange, whereas money is the abstract. I could give you 1 BTC for a stick of gum, and that'd be a use of it as a currency. However if I just give you a wallet.dat that contained 1 BTC, that would be using the wallet.dat as money. I think.

kiyote

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Where it gets weird, is whether Bitcoin is a currency or just money. It has certain characteristics of currency, but it may just be a (mostly) anonymous form of money, though users think of it as a currency.

BitcoinMint.US

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Interesting topic.

kiyote

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Money is any object or record that can be accepted as payments for any goods or services, while a currency is a specific generally accepted medium of exchange.

In other words, currency is something physical that has intrinsic value, while money is anything that has value.

Lets say you have $100: $80 in the bank, and a $20 bill. You want to buy a cup of coffee from Starbucks, which costs $5, so you hand the barista your $20 bill, and she gives you a $5 bill and a $10 bill back. There is no identifying marks on any of the bills to tell where the money is coming from, or where it is going. If a mugger walked into the Starbucks and demanded your $20 bill as you were handing it over to the barista, he could then use the bill to buy a pizza without any problems.

Now lets say you want to buy a suit from the local tailor for $50, which you don't have in currency. You write a check to the tailor for $50, and he gives you your suit. But this is a money transfer, which tells the bank to debit the record of your account $50 and credit your tailor's account $50. If your evil mugger stole this check, your mugger couldn't cash it (convert the check to a currency) without forging your tailors identity.

ultima

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5VNAEmmBQM

@ 4:50 Mike Maloney explains his view on currency vs money.

deuxmill

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IMHO

Money is everything that could be exchanged for something else but have value inherently (SEX , Food , salt , Intelligence ,Currency* etc.) = Wealth .
Currency something purposely designed to be exchanged. (GOLD , tally sticks, copper coins , paper bills , etc. ) and it's useless and worthless without someone else wanting it. = Belief .

*Currency is money as long as there is belief in it (there is demand for it) when belief stops value of the currency disappears and it stops qualifying as money.

This is my view .. it could be wrong though.

Dan The Man

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currency is to money as frequency is to a Fourier transformation

no wait,

currency is to money as shoes are to footwear

or

currency is to money as warships are to naval power

helloworld

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Quote from: kjj on October 26, 2011, 11:08:49 AM

In my view, money is the abstraction, and currency is the realization.

I agree. And to put it another way:

Currency is a form of money, but money isn't a form of currency.

kjj

legendary

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I would say no. This is after just a moment's thought, so it might change.

In my view, money is the abstraction, and currency is the realization. When you pay someone with a paper bill, or a metal coin, you are operating on both levels, giving them both the abstraction, and the physical embodiment. When you pay with a check or a credit card, you are operating only on the abstract level, so money changes hands, but currency does not.

Then again, on a deeper philosophical level, one could argue that the paper money or metal coin is very nearly as abstract as a check or credit card transaction. But, if you must draw a line somewhere based on principles, I think what I've described is a good place to draw it.

Oh, and note that while a check isn't generally a currency, there have been (and can be again) situations where personal checks have been passed around at face value, making them a currency within those specific situations.

Possum

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Hi

Are Currency and Money the Same thing.

I'm asking this question here as you guys see things more realistically than others

Thank you

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