4 ms·
Gold has utility. You can't make circuits out of Bitcoins.
by zach_garwood 4y ago
Gold has utility. You can't make circuits out of Bitcoins.
- nightski 4y agoBut most Gold is not used for circuits. Not only that, gold can be mined on demand and has an ever increasing supply (gold does not really disappear).
- cowtools 4y agoSure, but a not-insignificant amount of gold is still used for industrial applications. Even if gold wasn't used as money or in jewlery, I imagine it would still be quite expensive: at least half of it's current price. The same could be said of other precious metals. But I don't think you can say the same about bitcoin. Bitcoin's fundamental utility is low, even compared to other cryptocurrencies. Gold has useful unique properties over other metals. Bitcoin does not even have useful unique properties over other cryptocurrencies.
- daniel-cussen 4y agoIt would definitely be worth half its price as a reserve currency for purely industrial reasons, if not a bit more. Like if it became impossible to balance payments with it, well like if it became irradiated long-term like in Goldfinger, but there was still some clean gold left and it was just for industry. People would totally invent new uses for it at half the price. They just don't even consider it because it's expensive.
- cowtools 4y agoThis reminds me, I was looking at the periodic table the other day and I noticed that gold actually has a pretty high electronegativity: almost as high as carbon! https://mappingignorance.org/2017/02/09/electronegative-gold/ https://mappingignorance.org/2017/02/09/electronegative-gold... Makes me wonder if there are a ton of unexplored properties and usecases for rare metals that we just haven't discovered yet.
- lamp987 4y agoYou think gold has the value it has because a miniscule amount of it is used in circuits?
- cowtools 4y agoI think it has a more stable value if the demand for gold is more diversified across industries.