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Wow, that's an excellent point. That doesn't happen easily with gold. People retrieve gold from ships sunk hundreds of years ago. Actually, is there an effici
by zach 15y ago
Wow, that's an excellent point. That doesn't happen easily with gold. People retrieve gold from ships sunk hundreds of years ago.
Actually, is there an efficient way that physical gold or other precious metals can be intentionally destroyed or put beyond use? Has anyone tried to use this technique to corner a market?
What would happen if Hugo Chávez actually got his hands on 211 tons of actual gold and announced he has verifiably shot half of it into the sun? Presumably, you could make money on such an event through the options market.
So it's a great point that it's comparatively easy to do such a thing with Bitcoin. It's even entirely possible to do it by mistake (i.e. a programming error).
Physicality is a fantastic hedge against loss.
- sliverstorm 15y agoGold can be "destroyed or put beyond use" by stockpiling (similar to DeBeers & stockpiling diamonds) or by disseminating it such that recovering it is not cost-efficient. For example, the oceans have a small percentage of dissolved gold, but extracting it is too expensive to make a profit.
- wmf 15y agoActually, is there an efficient way that physical gold or other precious metals can be intentionally destroyed or put beyond use? Has anyone tried to use this technique to corner a market? In Goldfinger, the eponymous villain tried to irradiate all the gold in Ft. Knox with a dirty bomb, making it worthless.
- zach 15y agoOh wow, how could I miss that? Well, now it comes out that I've never seen Goldfinger. And I've listened to all the Bond discussions with John Gruber on The Talk Show. Shame on me!
- nerfhammer 15y agoWouldn't that actually not make it worthless? Wouldn't you just have to encase it in lead?