[brianvli]

> Sure, but why do we need a separate currency for all of this in the first place?

I might be answering the wrong q, but the separate currency represents the cost of a transaction in the network. I.e. the amount you're willing to pay to send a transaction in the network and the amount a staker is willing to receive in exchange for validating your transaction

How else would you represent that cost in a crypto network? Some kind of currency needs to represent the transaction cost.