Money Reimagined: Who Are the Real Monsters?

Another characteristic bitcoin shares with older forms of money, and not the electronic kind that sits in your bank account, is that it is a bearer asset.

One more commonality with cash is that bitcoin requires no personally identifiable information to handle - at least, the basic open-source software doesn't, even if regulated exchanges demand it.

While its exchange rate with the dollar fluctuates wildly from minute to minute, over time bitcoin has appreciated mightily in value.

As the price of bitcoin has surged higher in recent months, a string of listed companies has announced they are engaging with the cryptocurrency.

On Wednesday last week, U.K.-listed fintech firm Mode Global Holdings revealed a "Significant purchase" of bitcoin for treasury management purposes and PayPal confirmed it would enable bitcoin transactions on its payments app.

In the first three cases, the companies essentially embraced the thinking of many bitcoin bulls, treating the cryptocurrency as a "Digital gold" hedge with which to protect their liquid assets against future monetary stress.

With PayPal, the action was likely more geared toward leveraging an anticipated rise in public demand for bitcoin.

As of late Thursday, New York time, bitcoin was up 21% from the end of July and up 17% from two weeks earlier.

These high-profile announcements were not neutral; they directly contributed to bitcoin's price gains and elevated the conversation around its relevance in hedging strategies.

One way to read Iran's embrace of bitcoin to avoid U.S. sanctions is to see it as an advertisement for the cryptocurrency's core value proposition as a censorship-resistant means of payment requires no third-party intermediation - such as a U.S.-regulated bank.