Recently I have read a debate if Bitcoin is a currency or technology. It stated there that it is a technology stock and not a currency since the governments have not approved it as a currency. I wanted to know your opinion in this debate. Is bitcoin a currency, or isn't it?
I do not classify Bitcoin as a currency proper, but only as a potential currency. More precisely, it is a potential money. Bitcoin acts as a medium of exchange (for the Bitcoin economy) and a store of value (admittedly a relatively poor one). It does not however function as a unit of account. Businesses do not use their nominal bitcoin costs and earnings to assess their profitability. Shops do not price their goods in bitcoin; they price them in local fiat and calculate the a corresponding bitcoin price on the fly. Very few users mentally measure value in bitcoins but think instead in terms of their local fiat.
Government approval is irrelevant. "currency" is a word in natural language. Natural languages are evolving, decentralised system. Governments do not approve words into existence, language exists independently of coercive hierarchy.
Related thought experiment: Suppose some/all governments published documents stating that they considered the word "water" to refer to granuals of silicon dioxide and "sand" to refer to liquid H2O. Do these official definitions affect the real meanings of the words "water" and "sand"?
