Why do people refer to Bitcoin as currency when it is not classed as tender from a taxation perspective?

Why would that be relevant?

What the tax man says is completely irrelevant, except for tax. If the tax man says houses are investments, does that mean we shouldn't live in them? No, it just changes how the tax is calculated.

Bitcoin was designed to be a currency, and can be used as a currency. And houses were designed to be lived in, and can be.

Cryptocurrency is not a currency by any traditional definition, but it is an asset because people ascribe monetary worth to it.

However, it is a notional currency, because it was designed to be a currency.

Assets (whether gold bars, shares of Exxon, shares of GameStop, Beanie Babies, house or Beanie Babies) which increase in value accrue capital gains.

Those capital gains are taxed unless (like primary housing) explicitly excluded.

Thus, you are wrong, and the media -- as usual -- is sloppy. (We all call it cryptocurrency, so we're all sloppy is usage.)

There is a lot of confusion here. "Currency" is simply ...

• Currency is just money that is commonly and generally used (in a given time and place)

That's all it means.

For example, Euros are not currency in New York. But of course Euros are currency in Lyon.

In Calais (it's a town in France very close to England), Euros are of course currency, and it's fair to say that English money is also currency, or pretty close - many shops, people, taxis etc will take English money in Calais.

We've all heard that certain island nations used Shells as currency in the old days.

And so on.

Note that indeed you can argue about whether something "is a currency".

Indeed, is bitcoin or ethereum a "currency"? - well, I'd say no, you can not use them at my local supermarket in the US. On the other hand, they are surely gaining usage - maybe in a few years (or less!) we will all say, "Obviously ethereum is a currency, I just used it at Dunkin' Donuts!"

Or for example, someone might say "Fattie is an idiot, only a few shops in Calais take English pounds, of course pounds are not currency in Calais."

That's all "currency" means.

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Note that you mention "taxes".

This has no connection at all to anything mentioned here, and, no relationship to whether it's a "currency" or not.

If you're a market trader and you trade any currency, any commodity, any stock or anything like say houses ... of course you pay tax. Lots of day traders in the USA trade the USD. Obviously they pay tax.

(Could it be you think that "if something is a currency, it has no capital gains tax" .. or something. That is (A) totally wrong and (B) there's just no connection there, it doesn't even make sense.)

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Just to completely repeat:

1. You may think there is an "official definition" of currency. No, it just means that "it is used commonly as money". That's all it means. There is utterly no "official" definition of currency or similar terms.

2. You may think that there is some connection between tax and "currency". There's no connection whatsoever.

3. If you hold some (say) Canadian dollars and later sell them and you have made a profit, you (of course) get taxed on that. There is no difference whatsoever with literally anything. If you hold an oil painting, gold, bitcoin, stocks, shares, antiques, houses .. whatever .. if it goes up when you sell it you pay tax. This has no connection, at all in any way, to issues like money, currency, etc.