It's really not all that strange, actually. If I get this wrong someone let me know, but from what I can tell the chits are basically functioning like normal paper money and coinage. They're to buy tangible items and/or services like paying the bartender or getting your roof fixed.

The credits always kind of had a really high value in the first place; if gave the handyman a credit for the second scenario, you could basically be giving him a house for fixing your roof (if it was the first credit he got).

So now with this system, you can pay the handyman without getting him a whole house for fixing the leak in your roof. If that makes sense.