It has to be more than "good as money" because the same is true of any cryptocurrency and very much more true of Bitcoin with its large network and notoriety feeding its lead on the competition every day. The amazing part about protoshares wasn't they were easy to mine for a minute, but rather that they have a clear point of value distribution at fairly predictable points in the future and barring complete failure of the project, the value of the cryptocurrency is secured by peoples best guesses of the future value of those disbursements.
the last line brings it full circle to speculation. i'm in no way advocating flash mining. Distribution is a matter of stand point, and the current rates that we are minting these shares shows that predictability is leprechaun gold. I'm simply putting forward an idea which i think settles in cozy with my observations, not only of proto but of cryptos as a whole.
Many have gone the way of forking for various reasons, but none has clearly been speculative, seeing the performance of proto and coupling it with experience adjusted values may produce a commodity that combines many good qualities and can be used for any purpose people deem fit.
Bitcoin takes too long, WDC is too fast
Infinite pays too much and Franko too little
Elacoin died of difficulty and Cent was just too easy
see where i am going?
either way, this is just a proposal, nothing set in stone. and while you speak of backing value...you do know most of the world's currencies are currently unbacked?