[eru]

Depends. If you have a fiduciary money, it has some meaning even when not used in commerce.

Fiduciary money is basically when your note say 'the issuer promises to give the bearer X on request', where X can be a cow or certain amount of gold or some other base currency.

Without commerce, this kind of money essentially degenerates into a voucher. But vouchers have some (minimal) meaning, even without being used in commerce.

[remram]

Redeeming that token for goods or services looks a lot like commerce.

[eru]

Well, if you widen your definition of commerce enough: yes.

But to be honest, money that changes hands often looks a lot more 'commerce-y' to me than money that just sits in a drawer until it is redeemed once.

[remram]

From a global perspective maybe, from the spender's perspective any currency can only be spent once.

Whether you obtain a car by spending your bill or obtain gold by redeeming your bill... you gave your bill in exchange for the good.

[eru]

That's an interesting perspective to consider.

From an individuals perspective, there's a difference between letting my money sit under my mattress or letting it accumulate interest in an account.

I can only spend it once in the end, but the money did different things for me while I was still waiting and deciding.