I noticed that the ECB never referred to Bitcoin as a commodity or as commodity money. I think that is significant, legally.
They acknowledge the philosophy was inspired by the gold standard but their charts exclude gold. If you put gold in the charts and remove SLL it would provide a more constructive comparison (USD vs BTC vs GOLD)
I've never understood the notion of bitcoin as a commodity.
Money, in the abstract sense, is value that you have given to society, that you have not yet redeemed. It is a token of a half-completed trade. Bitcoin is an excellent implementation of that abstract idea.
Bitcoin is absolutely a commodity.
From Wikipedia:
The more specific meaning of the term commodity is applied to goods only. It is used to describe a class of goods for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market.[3] A commodity has full or partial fungibility; that is, the market treats its instances as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. "From the taste of wheat it is not possible to tell who produced it, a Russian serf, a French peasant or an English capitalist."[4] Petroleum and copper are examples of such commodities.[5] The price of copper is universal, and fluctuates daily based on global supply and demand. Items such as stereo systems, on the other hand, have many aspects of product differentiation, such as the brand, the user interface, the perceived quality etc. And, the more valuable a stereo is perceived to be, the more it will cost.
In contrast, one of the characteristics of a commodity good is that its price is determined as a function of its market as a whole. Well-established physical commodities have actively traded spot and derivative markets. Generally, these are basic resources and agricultural products such as iron ore, crude oil, coal, salt, sugar, coffee beans, soybeans, aluminum, copper, rice, wheat, gold, silver, palladium, and platinum. Soft commodities are goods that are grown, while hard commodities are the ones that are extracted through mining.
Bitcoin is a commodity because it is a fungible good without qualitative differentiation. Just like gold. Just like rice. Just like oil.
The fact that this commodity's primary use is "as money" does not remove the label of commodity from it. The commodity gold is used as money and jewelry. The commodity rice is used as food. The commodity oil is used as energy and for manufacturing. The commodity bitcoin is used as money.
We could call bitcoin a "purely digital commodity," but it is nevertheless a commodity and this shouldn't be contentious.