What's more likely to still be used in 1,000 years, bitcoin or gold?

[Madison320]

Obviously there's a 0% chance bitcoin will be used in 1,000 years.

500 years? 0%

100 years? maybe .0001%

50 years? maybe 1-2%

0-50 years? who knows?

gold is 100%

 

[GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged]

Gold.

 

[GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged]

What is more likely to be used in 50 years BTC or FRN?
FRN or some sort of digital US currency.

 

[ClaytonB]

Gold.

Gold.

Bitcoin can help us kill CBDCs, central-banking, fiat-money, etc. But the end-goal is to return to honest money, which is gold and silver. I assume that, in a digital future, there will still be demand for a high-speed digital currency like Bitcoin that can be used for micro-payments, etc. But we're still a long ways off from that and, regardless of how much long-run demand for Bitcoin there will be, we can be certain that gold and silver will be in use as money after the last pile of worthless fiat money has been burnt to ash for heating in the winter...

 

[Madison320]

Gold.

Bitcoin can help us kill CBDCs, central-banking, fiat-money, etc. But the end-goal is to return to honest money, which is gold and silver. I assume that, in a digital future, there will still be demand for a high-speed digital currency like Bitcoin that can be used for micro-payments, etc. But we're still a long ways off from that and, regardless of how much long-run demand for Bitcoin there will be, we can be certain that gold and silver will be in use as money after the last pile of worthless fiat money has been burnt to ash for heating in the winter...

I agree.

My point is that for the same reason that there's 0% chance that bitcoin will be used 1,000 years from now, it can stop being used tomorrow. It's just not a safe store of value.

 

[ClaytonB]

I agree.

My point is that for the same reason that there's 0% chance that bitcoin will be used 1,000 years from now, it can stop being used tomorrow. It's just not a safe store of value.

I don't agree there's 0% chance it will be used 1,000 years from now. We just don't know. But it's certainly never going to replace gold/silver. The long-run future maybe gold/silver+BTC. I'm cool with that. But gold/silver are definitely not going anywhere as long as the laws of physics remain what they are. So, they're definitely more bulletproof than BTC, even if BTC has certain advantages that no physical commodity can have. There's enough room in the Universe for three basic forms of money. We can all get along...

 

[jct74]

What about asteroid mining or some other kind of technological innovation? If we figure out nuclear fusion in the next few decades, and there is a limitless supply of energy, couldn't you just mass produce gold in a particle accelerator?

 

[GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged]

What about asteroid mining or some other kind of technological innovation? If we figure out nuclear fusion in the next few decades, and there is a limitless supply of energy, couldn't you just mass produce gold in a particle accelerator?

Yes. So long as you get your protein from bugs.

 

[dannno]

Unless we invent some teleportation device, gold is difficult to transport for the quick exchange of value for goods and services in a globalized economy.

A gold backed digital currency sounds good in theory, and could be instituted in practice. But if the value of the digital currency relies on the physical gold then it must be stored securely by a trusted party. If that gold is stolen or embezzled, then you would have the digital currency representing gold that does not exist, along with the addition of physical gold in the marketplace which causes inflation of the physical asset - until it is discovered, at which point the value of the digital currency is undermined. It is similar to the "double-spending" problem that bitcoin was meant to solve.

One of the arguments against bitcoin is that as it is simply numbers on a ledger and these numbers do not have any intrinsic value in and of themselves. There is nothing physical of value backing them, or, like a stock, there is no assets or profitability backing the value.

However one could also argue that this is precisely what makes bitcoin remarkable - there is no securitization of assets required and it is not dependent on the profitability of a corporate entity. This reduces the risk of the underlying asset being lost or depreciating and affecting the value of the currency.

If everybody decides that the decentralized bitcoin network itself is the underlying asset of value, thus the currency holds value, thus minimizing the risk of loss or depreciation of any underlying asset or entity, that actually makes the currency less risky and more robust for use in trading goods and services.

The other issue with gold is that at some point, if we invent cheap enough energy sources, it is likely that it will be mined interplanetarily and the idea that it will always continue to be a finite resource with a relatively known future supply is just a supposition.