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Notice how their success is measured in USD.

That's because it's the unit of value that the article's reader is most likely familiar with. When you go on vacation you're most likely constantly converting prices in the local currency to the currency you're familiar with - that doesn't mean the local currency is worthless (if that's what you were implying).

After I moved from UK to US, it was months before I stopped doing the mental arithmetic from USD to GBP.

When you move from the US to the UK you have to stop doing it immediately or you'll drive yourself insane.

Instead of what, gold?

Instead of BTC. You know, when US banks talk about how much business they are doing, they speak in terms of dollars. When Japanese banks talk about how they are doing, they speak in terms of Yen. The funny think about Bitcoin is that its success is measured in terms of other currencies, although that should not be too surprising since its utility is absolutely dependent on the existence of other currencies and on the existence of exchanges.

Why might that be, you ask? Simple: everyone still lives in the real world, where taxes and other debts have to be repaid, and nobody can use Bitcoin for that. So any business that accepts a Bitcoin payment, even if it is an illegal business, does so with the intention of trading Bitcoin for another currency later.

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