No it is not. That is debt, absolutely no doubt about it. That is emphatically not even USD. It is contracts to pay USD to a named person at some future date that are "changing hands", not USD.
There is a very big difference, especially in case of liquidity problems. But there are more huge differences : for instance, exchanging money is not free (someone's paying 2% or so). Thirdly, those transaction are legally required to be reversible (just browse some online forums), and are reversed in apparently 1-2% of cases.
If bitcoin has proven anything, it's that there is a huge need for a currency that you can actually exchange over the network.
There is a very big difference, especially in case of liquidity problems. But there are more huge differences : for instance, exchanging money is not free (someone's paying 2% or so). Thirdly, those transaction are legally required to be reversible (just browse some online forums), and are reversed in apparently 1-2% of cases.
If bitcoin has proven anything, it's that there is a huge need for a currency that you can actually exchange over the network.