It also works as digital gold. The problem is that gold is tanking along with everything else.
I think it's time everyone gets straight on what they want to use bitcoin for. If they want to use it as a store of value, that's fine with them. There's nothing wrong with doing that, it just guards you from political events in individual countries, but not global events like things that are happening now.
If however they want to use it as a payment solution then that's also OK, we just need to fix a proper price in BTC for one commodity such as soft drinks and furniture, there's no way merchants can continue adjusting the BTC price of their items according to the exchange rate. Nobody changes the cost of things priced in euros of Japanese yen because the exchange rates of those against the dollar changed.
But I admit it's easier for foreign currencies to get away with this because they are only used locally, not globally. Bitcoin, trying to be accepted globally, has more price-conscious people in different countries using it, any political activity in one of them affects the bitcoin price because it's listed on exchanges.
In other words, if you're going to lease a jeep for 0.03 btc/month, then do it and ignore movements of the exchange rate. If you're going to buy a Mercedes roadster at 9 BTC then keep it at that rate. It may be more expensive than buying it in other currencies, but it at least gives bitcoin merchants a chance to get more customers (the ones who are wary of buying something at 2x the price it will be tomorrow, like what just happened today).
While we're on the subject of identity crisis, bitcoin was
clearly not intended to be used solely at exchanges, casinos, darknet websites, Ponzi schemes and P2P trading at bitcointalk. And yet that's where the majority of the activity is happening. See these listed cars?
It would be nice if they had starting price was in BTC as well as dollar. And I think that's where we're stuck. No business wants a starting price in two different currencies, that would interfere with its listed value (MSRP). They don't want two different listed values. All but one of the currencies must move aside.