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Because you can't print gold. The fundamental question is: Should we represent the value of real finite things (carrots, oil, land, etc) using an abstraction w
by _red 9y ago
Because you can't print gold.
The fundamental question is: Should we represent the value of real finite things (carrots, oil, land, etc) using an abstraction which is also finite or one that is infinite?
Exponential growth curves can't continue forever. This is the fundamental reason why all fiat currencies eventually fail.
- betenoire 9y agoYou can't print gold? Are you saying you can't counterfeit "finite things"? Is that the main benefit here?
- _red 9y agoYou could potentially print gold via nuclear fusion / fission reactors. However the cost would be several orders of magnitude higher than few grams of gold produced. All successful forms of money share the following characteristics: counterfeit resistant, rare, fungible, easily transportable, little to no carrying cost, and high value per unit (another way to say rare). Its no accident that human society settled upon gold as representation of this ideal since it closely fits all these criteria. Its possible that crypto will change this however...
- betenoire 9y agoI think you worded your way around my question. You can fake people out without a nuclear reactor. And it looks like we settled on USD (or other workarounds to gold, for ages now), not gold.