One can look at BTS as on online money -like bitcoin. One can look at is as prepaid trading fees in an online exchange. One can look at it as a speculative Alt currency. Mostly I look at BTS as I would look at a stock. I think of BTS like I think of stock in IBM, Microsoft Google or Facebook. In this way BTS is ownership in a online crypto-exchange. BTS is one of the rare crypto-currencies with a sustainable business model. It actually makes money from trading fees. I will admit this analysis isn't prefect, but by the time one gets to debating these various views, they likely already have a good understanding of what bitshares is.