The days when "money" was based on something tangible are long gone anyway.
My son has some bitcoin , he told me something of them today.
They were earned (or created) in the first place by rewards for solving problems - or "mining" for answers rather than gold. The problems are getting more and more difficult so that now only one or two a year are found, and there will never be more than about 20 million of them in circulation. Compare that with banks that create money from nothing. But that's not the point.
They can be easily traded for a bank's version of money. (The son bought his within 5 mins of downloading an ap) Current rate aprox Ģ450 per coin. Unlike "bank money" the price or supply cannot be politically manipulated, (remember "quantitive easing") their worth is set by supply and demand. You can buy or sell goods and services with them with a RFID contactless app on your phone, just the same as bank money, but they have no physical form - that's not the point either.
Here's the point, they are run and administered by a blockchain rather than a bank. In the bitcoin context, a blockchain is a digital ledger that records every bitcoin transaction that has ever occurred. It is protected by cryptography so powerful that breaking it is typically dismissed as "impossible". More importantly, the blockchain resides across a network of computers, (of all the users). Whenever new transactions occur, the blockchain is authenticated across this distributed network, before the transaction can be included as the next block on the chain. (Thankyou Wikipedia )
This means it is a system outside Bank and Government control and National Boundries. There are no costs or commisions for transactions, no profits to shareholders etc... And they can't just fabricate money because there is no 'They'- there is no one in charge.
There are other virtual currencies too.
Now, I only found all this out today and have not thought about the implications. But if someone offered me a bitcoin for a weeks work I think I would accept.