Hi, my understanding is that first it was a bunch of CS weirdos exchanging bitcoins with each other, because it is kind of fun. And then when there were enough CS weirdos in the system they agreed on the exchange rate, and in fact it is around that time that the whole system is started functioning as a real "economy". My original suspicion was that the first bitcoin was also awarded in exchange of computing capacities, which would be kind of contradictory, because if there is no transaction, then no capacity is needed. :) But then it was clarified (in the talk) that the first tansaction was in fact a transaction with no real value.
I am being a bit sarcastic perhaps, and I may be wrong. I would be happy to look into this bitcoin thing some time in my future from the "economist's" perspective, but for the time being I don't have time for that. And perhaps by the time I find time, the bitcoin won't even be an important phenomenon any more. :) --Neruo (talk) 17:55, 21 May 2013 (UTC)