For Austrian economists, money is fundamentally different from the mainstream view of money as an institutional creation issued by central banks and governments. In the Austrian view, money is a rare good that emerges spontaneously from the market, freely selected by economic actors for its ability to facilitate exchange.

The primary characteristic of money is its exchangeability. Murray Rothbard points out in "État, qu'as-tu fait de notre monnaie?" that the functions traditionally attributed to money (medium of exchange, unit of account, store of value) are merely consequences of its primary function as an intermediary in exchanges. A good becomes money because it is perceived as the most liquid by market participants. This liquidity overcomes the limitations of barter by eliminating the need for double coincidence of needs.

Money occupies a singular place among economic goods. Unlike consumer or capital goods, money is not consumed in its use. Rothbard explains that its function is to act as an intermediary for exchange, enabling goods and services to circulate rapidly between individuals.

In Austrian thinking, money also plays a crucial role in disseminating economic information in the form of prices. The price is the accounting expression of the subjective valuation of a good and, on a societal scale, what Ludwig von Mises called a "guiding star" informing all participants about the state of the market. Currency thus serves as a common denominator, translating subjective values into comparable terms.

Mises defines money as a "transmitter of values in space and time". It allows purchasing power to be distributed in space, so as to exchange with as many people as possible, and to be deferred in time. Individuals store the fruits of their labor, made up of the two rarest resources: energy and human time.

Understanding money as an instrument of certainty naturally leads to the question of its scarcity. Carl Menger explains in his "Principles of Political Economy" that property and the human economy constitute the only practical solution to the problem posed by the disparity between human needs and the available quantity of goods. Mises develops this idea by asserting that, without scarcity, man would not know need and would never seek to act.

This notion is essential to understanding money. Although it differs from other market goods, it must nevertheless reflect the reality of what it represents: scarcity. Rothbard defended a fixed quantity of money, arguing that any quantity is adequate, since the market adjusts by modifying the purchasing power of the monetary unit. An increase in supply simply dilutes the efficiency of each unit. This vision, shared by classical economists such as David Hume and Adam Smith, contrasts with the mainstream approach.

In 1912, Ludwig von Mises introduced the regression theorem in his "Theory of Money and Credit" to resolve a fundamental logical paradox. For money to have value, it must be demanded, but for it to be demanded, it must already have value. Mises resolves this circularity by explaining that commodity money always has a premonetary utility value in a barter economy, which precedes its monetary use.

This theorem explains well the origin of the price of traditional commodity currencies such as gold and silver. However, its application to digital currencies remains debated among contemporary Austrian economists. Two camps can be distinguished: those who remain attached to the tangible nature of commodity money, and those who observe with curiosity what the market process produces with innovations such as bitcoin.