[JumpCrisscross]

One can just as easily say that currencies are denominated in assets. When valuing a currency one inevitably resorts to trade flow and capital production statistics. A better way to think of these flows is as swaps instead of "buying" things with money.

In the modern banking system Treasury bonds function just as much as money as Federal Reserve notes (which are technically a debt). Before the crisis AAA corporate bonds were accepted as collateral nearly on par with Treasury bonds.