Nothing can be further from the truth. You don't have to go too far for the example. Cigarettes in prisons are used as money. People use all sorts of things as money. State wants to control it because it wants to collect some of the value produced by other people. That is all. Bitcoin is about not giving states these powers.
No. That's barter. Money has very specific characteristics. Cigarettes in prison fail these three: divisibility, durability and uniformity.
https://www.stlouisfed.org/education/economic-lowdown-podcas...
Mackerel was chosen since it's cost was closest to $1USD, and nobody wants to eat it. It also has unique markings so they can track down theft from each other.
If it were truly the case that no one wanted it, it could not be used as money, as another good would quickly replace it.
Mackerel would be worse than cigarettes as they are not divisible. It would also be a good source of Vitamin D if you were incarcerated in northern latitudes
All other decentralized money had demand other than for its currency purposes. Cigs in jail are in demand so they became a way to store value.
Bitcoin is the opposite. It has value because people are saying it's a currency. But it's monopoly money.
In most countries AFAIK it is illegal to mint your own "currency" and call it as such, hence artifact of the state.
Bitcoin lets non-state actors create currency.. incidentally, those most equipped to fund the processing power, are state actors, hence artifact of the state.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/55414/7-cities-have-their-own...
You can make your own currency all you want. You just can't make currency and pass it off as state sponsored currency without permission from the state.