It's a strange thing that people always want "value" in their medium of exchange. In a perfect world, the transaction would occur with an item of no value other than the reflection of the two buyers value of commodities being traded.
This would prevent people from hoarding mediums of exchange and taking them out of circulation. Greed is truly the root of the problems that exist in finance. Unfortunately there is always somebody that would rather just collect the medium whether it be bitcoins or gold or cash... regardless of the fact that the long term value may be 0 (as in cash).
I don't think it's too strange... just a little. If you think about it, a medium of no determined value sounds like a fiat currency, where the medium is basically an IOU. Since they have no inherent backing of value, they're subject to radical fluctuations in price and supply, whereas a medium with some barrier to creation and ownership is in most cases more resistant to forces like that.