.... Acceptability is established by governments. By collecting taxes, government is the most universal acceptor of public funds. If the government calls it acceptable, people will use it. Just look at the dollar. A one dollar bill has an equal intrinsic value to a 100 dollar bill but we accept them differently because thats the money system we have in place. While the gold system was much more stable than the current dollar system because of the difficulty in abusing it, it was still far from perfect.

It really doesn't matter what we use as currency, so long as everyone accepts it. What gives money its value, whether it be gold or dollars, is its acceptability. Sure gold has several applications, but their viability is circumstantial. Gold has an intrinsic value if you happen to be making a ring or a circuit board, but by the same token dollars have an intrinsic value if you need to wrap fish or wipe your ass. The point I want to make is that the likelihood of using your money for its intrinsic purpose is very minimal. What gives money value is its acceptablility regardless of what is used to serve as money.