No to paying taxes, mostly because the asset you'd have is an apple... The corner store at least has a receivable, but the IRS still won't accept that from them.

But, at least in the US, before the national bank acts in the 1800's, various taxing entities specified which bank notes (or other assets) they'd accept and not accept. It was basically whichever bank notes circulated the most with no/little discount, some gold/silver coins, some government bonds. Ie acceptance by a taxing entity isn't really a clear line on "is/is not" money.

Trading receivables has been going on forever, happens today, is totally legal. The corner store could sell the receivable, and many businesses to sell their receivables.

>How long will your corner store survive if the IRS found out you were processing transactions in your own currency?

Offering someone credit in USD isn't making your own currency. The closest widespread version of that are community currencies[0], which the US doesn't seem to particularly care about -- I'm guessing because they're generally pegged to the dollar and promote local economies.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_community_currencies_i...

You didn’t say currency, you said credit. But it doesn’t matter, lots of non-US chartered institutions historically create US dollars. There are some treaties around it now but in the beginning English banks created the Eurodollar system with no control by the US government.