What is the deal with people saying money requires "inherent value".

Money is used to trade for things that have value. The purpose of money is to make trading easier.

I want to trade my bananas for your goats. And you want to trade your goats for their leather. Money is the abstraction that makes these trades easier.

The units of account dont need to be valuable inherently, they just need to be capable of serving as abstraction for things that do have inherent value.

We could keep track of every transaction on a ledger with no actual units being passed around and things could still be accurately transacted by their actual value.

Oh wait, that's what Bitcoin is. Literal proof inherent value of the units of account aren't necessary for money to work.

The fact that gold can be used for other things besides money is completely irrelevant to its usefulness as money. Money just has to work as money.