If you had to convert all your wealth to either Bitcoin or gold and keep it there for 10 years, which would you choose? Keep in mind the fact that Bitcoin has only been around for 5 years, and could be fundamentally different in any number of ways in 10 years.
For the all criteria you've mentioned it's gold - it has been around for much longer can kill bacteria in the water, does not rely on electricity and should cost $10 000, when comparing to the January 1980 and adjusting to dollar inflation (
M1 has grown 12 times since that time)
You don't count in the growth in population, you completely discard the labor productivity and working efficiency increases as well as growth of the economy itself. As to me, today's prices of gold are perfectly sensible from an economic point of view.
I doubt that from 1980 population increased 12 times or that it started to produce 6 times more tangible goods per capita. If the rate of gold production wouldn't grow at the same speed with the population growth, we would have to multiply the price of gold by more than 12, but since they are growing at virtually the same speed, $850x12 is quite an accurate number. Plus keep in mind, that the number of people who have access to trading PM on commodity exchanges today is far greater than it was in 1980, so the price of gold can rise even higher. Gold is more inert than silver, but you won't see water spoil in a gold pot, will you? It's seems that it's you who confuses the cost of production with the potential cost of a product, which depends totally on demand. Central bank hold about 1 billion troy ounces of gold available for sale (if there is much gold left in Fort Knox), and we, the people, hold around $150T in different financial assets (not taking into account the real estate), plus another $150T are hold by different institutions and organizations (private and government). So, if for some reason (be it panic or some sort of enlightenment) people decide to put 1/20th of that $300T into gold supposedly available for investment, its price will rise to $15K; and if in reality there is only half a billion of gold available for sale by central banks, it's price would go to $30K per troy ounce; and should people decide to convert 10% of their financial assets to gold, its price would rise to $60 000; and if another 10% would go to silver (as too far more available alternative), it's price would rise to at least $10 000, as there are around 3B troy ounces of silver theoretically available for investment (2B - in bullion coinage cut from the start of the bullion programs in 1980-s, 500M ounces hold by JP Morgan and another 500M hold by different silver investment pools).