Adam,
You nailed it. Back in the day, people talked about bitcoin satisfying the requirement of having use X [and not Y] by saying it was used “as money”, meaning Y.
From https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/whats-up-with-bitcoin-and-other-crypto-currencies/22732/16:
A: "intrinsic value, as money,"
Smiling Dave: Oxymoron.
A: Not at all. Bla bla etc etc.
From http://www.dailypaul.com/226936#comment-2393312
Intrinsic value is a sine qua non for money.
Bitcoin is the result of the application of Labour to Land in the economic sense and it is, at one and the same time, a secure means of exchange without any intermediary anywhere in the world instantaneously, and a system of payments. It is, given its finite design, a store of value and a unit of account divisible to 21*10 to the 14th. power. This is equivalent to the existing store of gold on the planet expressed in tenths of a milligram each equivalent to 0.001543 grain.
It also cannot be counterfeited due to its mathematical properties within the network of which it is a part.
All of these features mean it has intrinsic value as money…
I’ve mocked these guys in the past, and nobody seemed to get what I was on about. Glad to see it’s starting to sink in.