Real assets have intrinsic value. They have value in use as well as value in exchange. A barter economy has NO money and NO financial assets. The barter economy is a system of relative prices . All assets are valued in terms of all other assets.
Prices continually vary in response to supply and demand.
The barter economy requires a double coincidence of wants . The buyer must have a real asset, which the seller wants, in exchange for what the seller has for the buyer. Otherwise, trade involves intermediate transactions until the buyer and seller have acquired what each other wants. Even the government is reduced to collecting taxes as real assets and, then, it has only these real assets to spend. A barter economy has a very low investment rate .