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Why has gold prevailed over thousands of years while almost all fiat currencies went to 0?

graeme 6y ago
Gold stores value but it hasn’t really appreciated. Whereas the claim for bitcoin is that it will soar in value. Why? Warren Buffett said it best on gold. It just sits there. Here’s one quote I found. In another he compared buying gold in 1900 vs us stocks. “ I will say this about gold. If you took all the gold in the world, it would roughly make a cube 67 feet on a side…Now for that same cube of gold, it would be worth at today’s market prices about $7 trillion dollars – that’s probably about a third of the value of all the stocks in the United States…For $7 trillion dollars…you could have all the farmland in the United States, you could have about seven Exxon Mobils, and you could have a trillion dollars of walking-around money…And if you offered me the choice of looking at some 67 foot cube of gold and looking at it all day, and you know me touching it and fondling it occasionally…Call me crazy, but I’ll take the farmland and the Exxon Mobils.” I
- cconroy 6y ago
  he is conflating things with value and a good unit to measure said value -- which is itself very valuable.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Daniel_sk 6y ago
  The same argument can be said about BTC. BTC doesn't pay dividends. I would rather own a company than the amount in BTC. Well in case of Gold in worst case you will be left with some shiny metal, that also has some intrinsic value because it's used in electronics (e.g. gold plated contacts). If BTC goes down then you will have nothing.
  - graeme 6y ago
    Yes that was my point. People say BTC is the new gold, but....gold isn’t that gold as a long run investment. It merely holds value, it doesn’t do anything.
- wp381640 6y ago
  > Whereas the claim for bitcoin is that it will soar in value. Why? Not so much that it'll soar - but should retain it's value because of the cap and decayed mining Further from that Buffett on his gold criticism - there is no hypothetical "bitcoin asteroid" that could hit earth and tank the value, or a new discovery You don't have to be all-in on bitcoin, it's a hedge and a better version of the role metals play(ed). Personally my own preference is bitcoin sits somewhere between stocks and cash - that's exactly what Tesla are doing with their own cash management
tekkk 6y ago
What? Most nations are only hundred years old or so. Gold has retained its value because it's a tangible asset. Unlike bitcoin that becomes worthless without internet and network of miners. Even fiat currencies, thousand or more years old, retain some of their value as historical artefacts.

Gold stores value but it hasn’t really appreciated. Whereas the claim for bitcoin is that it will soar in value. Why? Warren Buffett said it best on gold. It just sits there. Here’s one quote I found. In another he compared buying gold in 1900 vs us stocks. “ I will say this about gold. If you took all the gold in the world, it would roughly make a cube 67 feet on a side…Now for that same cube of gold, it would be worth at today’s market prices about $7 trillion dollars – that’s probably about a third of the value of all the stocks in the United States…For $7 trillion dollars…you could have all the farmland in the United States, you could have about seven Exxon Mobils, and you could have a trillion dollars of walking-around money…And if you offered me the choice of looking at some 67 foot cube of gold and looking at it all day, and you know me touching it and fondling it occasionally…Call me crazy, but I’ll take the farmland and the Exxon Mobils.” I

cconroy 6y ago
he is conflating things with value and a good unit to measure said value -- which is itself very valuable.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Daniel_sk 6y ago
The same argument can be said about BTC. BTC doesn't pay dividends. I would rather own a company than the amount in BTC. Well in case of Gold in worst case you will be left with some shiny metal, that also has some intrinsic value because it's used in electronics (e.g. gold plated contacts). If BTC goes down then you will have nothing.
- graeme 6y ago
  Yes that was my point. People say BTC is the new gold, but....gold isn’t that gold as a long run investment. It merely holds value, it doesn’t do anything.
wp381640 6y ago
> Whereas the claim for bitcoin is that it will soar in value. Why? Not so much that it'll soar - but should retain it's value because of the cap and decayed mining Further from that Buffett on his gold criticism - there is no hypothetical "bitcoin asteroid" that could hit earth and tank the value, or a new discovery You don't have to be all-in on bitcoin, it's a hedge and a better version of the role metals play(ed). Personally my own preference is bitcoin sits somewhere between stocks and cash - that's exactly what Tesla are doing with their own cash management

tekkk 6y ago

What? Most nations are only hundred years old or so. Gold has retained its value because it's a tangible asset. Unlike bitcoin that becomes worthless without internet and network of miners. Even fiat currencies, thousand or more years old, retain some of their value as historical artefacts.