[eof]

> The ability of dollars to hyperinflate or hyperdeflate is bounded by the fact they can be used to pay debts to the United States Government that are denominated in dollars.

This is not really 'backing'. Backing is when your currency can be traded for a specific amount of a specific thing. Your currency actually 'stands for' something else. Saying the US Dollar is 'backed' by the fact that you can pay debts to the US govt is isomporphic to bitcoins being 'backed' by the fact they are anonymous and you can trade them for DNS hosting.

And fwiw.. the bitcoin economy is roughly ~4.5 million USD right now.