It’s as real as any electronic bank account balance on anyone’s phone or computer. The powers that be are just mad at Bitcoin’s decentralized architecture.
That's why I choose to bank in the real world. We can argue about if paper money is real, sure, but it does have an agreed-upon value that makes it so. I can walk into the local bank, write a check, and they will give me cash.
That's a big difference. Money has a real-world manisfestation. Bitcoins do not, unless you find someone who will trade a bitcoin entry for real goods.
At least with the tulip ponzi scheme of old, when it collapsed, some people had very pretty flowers.
How can that be?
My bank account has the same value today as it did last week. I don’t have to beg people to tell me what the value is minute by minute, or worry about whether I can find someone to take payment when I want something.
Or worry that the product I want to buy will double in value between the time I pick it and the time I close my order.
Bitcoin is lousy money. The prime requirement of “money” is that it serve as a good medium for transfering the value of work I do through to the redemption of that work for something I want.
I would not want to be paid in company stock, and I certainly would not want to be paid in bitcoin, unless I could immediately convert it to cash.
And I’m guessing that there is not one person at FR, even the most rabid pro-bitcoin person, who has converted all of their cash to bitcoin.