Dr Rhys Bollen (2013), Senior Fellow at Monash University, Faculty of Law writes in a technically and legally substantial paper titled, The Legal Status of Online Currencies: Are Bitcoins the Future? He literates the philosophical views of payment and money as “sociological and economic phenomena- certain things are accepted as money or payment by social consensus- and while this can change over time, trust in new forms of money takes time to develop”. Bitcoin is not the first to break the mould of traditional coinage currency but its accolade in modern society is that it is a proof of concept of first decentralised electronic currency.
The Oxford English dictionary (2013) definition of “currency” is:
“A system of money in general use in a particular country”.
The popular American English dictionary Merriam Webster (2013) has a more liberal definition of “currency”:
“Something that is in circulation as a medium of exchange”.
Firstly the Oxford English dictionary uses “money” as a description of currency which the dictionary only recognises a singular rigid definition. Stemming from the Latin “moneta” the title for the Roman goddess Juno, in whose temple metal coin money was minted the Oxford definition of “money is strictly the hard physical form of which has extended to banknotes used for the action of unspecified exchange. Another restrain of this Oxford interpretation is the necessity of the aforementioned physical money to be in “general use” thus implying that other methods of exchange, coin-based or not, cannot be called “currency” if it is not the most frequently used “in a particular country”. This definition is an issue for the coexisting: Chinese Yuan and Renminbi; the Lebanese acceptance of United States Dollars (USD); Syrian Pounds and Lebanese Pounds; not to mention the systems of monies also circulating in the Cayman Islands and Serbia and Montenegro. Furthermore, for the topic of this dissertation it should be noted that Oxford’s finally parameter of currency as money of general use in “a particular country” signifies the singular dominion under one government; this is pertinent due to the implications of a centralised control system such as a central bank. Therefore according to this first definition- currency must be a form of coin-based money; in widespread usage; and falls under the judiciary system of a central governing body.
The first definition of form, usage and system draws one outstanding difference with the Merriam Webster interpretation that is- the function, which is stated in Merriam Webster as for “exchange”. Dealing with the physical form of currency, Merriam Webster is more liberal in encapsulating both the many of forms of it in human history and the countless ones in its future by merely stating that currency can be “something”. This indeterminate, unspecified definition engenders almost anything: physical or digital; such as a gold nugget or a computer file. The parameter “in circulation” whittles down this definition of currency from absolutely anything to something that can be reused for exchange.
Bollen, (2013) states “Money and payment operate by mutual consent and trust. What the parties agree is a payment is by definition a payment. That is, what constitutes valid payment is largely a matter of contract law. Regarding Bitcoin, if a payer and payee agree that transfer of a digital currency constitutes a payment, it is a valid payment as between them. Therefore Bitcoin a “useful and widely accepted digital currency” (The Economist.com, 2013b), with 50,000 transactions daily (Ferrara, 2013) has proven itself to act as a payment medium and a dictionary definition currency according to Merriam-Webster.
The New Exchange 