alt Hacker NewsI can't pay my rent or server bills in "bitcoins". I need to leverage my bitcoins in some way to get "dollars" that I can then pay my bills with. Non-monetary payment is still payment. Rare pokémon cards are payment too.
Also, in fact, people get things that otherwise cost money all the time based on prestige.
You absolutely can, because you can sell the bitcoins and turn them directly into money in your savings account. There are exchanges that declare their exact value. You can't do that with prestige. There's no exchange and no market.
Crucially, money, bitcoin, and pokemon cards are all transferrable. You can't transfer prestige to someone else, so it has no value in financial transactions.