> I could imagine your scenario of pricing in AAPL and paying in oil and GOOG in a technological sense, but I have a hard time imagining anyone actually doing it.
In Kenya people trade in cell phone minutes (MPESA). It's not a huge stretch to imagine trading in units of energy or other commodities.
It seems to me that having an instant settlement layer challenges the need for currency as an intermediary.
Each bitcoin is divisible up to 8 digits and can be used to represent certificates - potentially representing cell phone minutes, or certificates to equity or commodities - for the cost of .000000001 satoshi.
Now the kicker is, the bitcoin transaction fee is increasing rapidly due to (self-induced, political and totally fixable) bottlenecks in the network. I foresee an alternative taking over bitcoin if this isn't resolved soon.
The other kicker is that if 0.00001 (whatever the actual number would be) buys one cell phone minute today, it might buy two tomorrow, or one half. Short-term volatility makes it difficult to use as currency.
