it's intrinsic value is $0.00. It's convincing others that it has value that's the trick. The US government has gold deposits which once provided that backup for the agreement although now its a symbolic gesture at best.

So yeah, does the US goverment really back the beanie babies version of exchange? And granted that's not a fair comparison b/c Tyco can make an infinite number of beanie babies driving the value to 0. whearas bit coins have some math that claims there is a finite number of bitcoins. But if Tyco were disciplined and only made 1000 of some model their value would remain high(er).

But yeah, good question, they claim $40M was stolen, The US government can look at it as a Ponzi scheme where very little was stolen, perhaps they should be accused of fraud.