Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fiat currencies are backed by huge financial sectors. If all you need are numbers in a database, what are all those towers in NY for?
There's nothing about crypto that shows it wouldn't have exactly the same size of a financial sector in addition to proof of work, so the two aren't doing the same things. Forget fiat. When money was gold in a vault, that's proof of stake, not proof of work. For proof of work, you'd have to disintegrate the gold. I wouldn't put my trust in a dollar backed by the absence of gold. edit: I think maybe bitcoin enthusiast…
> I think maybe bitcoin enthusiasts think that value is a sort of spirit...
Interestingly, that is actually kind of how it works. The money you use itself has no value, it's value is in the things you use it to trade. So if you start trading in other currencies, those currencies receive that value, which gets reflected in the purchasing power metric.