Yes, except that gold will still be around with or without the state of computing radically changing. So I wonder if the incentive structure will continue to u

Yes, except that gold will still be around with or without the state of computing radically changing. So I wonder if the incentive structure will continue to uphold the validity of the ledger for such a timescale. Or if we’re going to discover things about computing, cryptography, and data representation that will leave bitcoin and others vulnerable to unforeseen attacks or degradations. A physical good can continue in the absence of a civilization to support it—virtual goods are tethered to the long-term viability of their protocols and the computing infrastructure which represents them. My suspcicion is that the long-term security of any cryptographic protocol is always approaching zero and that the field is still new enough that we have not yet developed 1000-year, let alone 100-year, protocols.