Don't forget that bitcoin has potential also to be worth much much less. The main problem with bitcoin is that Bitcoin has been on a roller-coaster ride, losing more than half its value last year. And bitcoin is not backed by anything more than basic laws of economy and mathematics. That is the reason we now see more altcoins backed by interesting concept - a real life commodity. After all digital currency backed by a physical commodity will be more appealing than volatile bitcoin.
Indeed. I did not mention that, however if gold collapses it will be almost useless. Gold would collapse if we found a replacement for jewelry or something.
On the other hand, if Bitcoin goes down to $1 it is not a problem. Bitcoin will still function (possibly even better than it has) if the price decreases. From a investing perspective Bitcoin is a high risk-high profit investment, and gold is a safer investment with less potential.
First of all, gold would never collapse. It is here with us since dawn of time and it was always precious and always will be desirable. Jewelry is not the only way gold can be used after all we have:
1. Financial Gold: Coinage, Bullion, Backing
2. Uses of Gold in Electronics
3. Use of Gold in Computers
4. Use of Gold in Dentistry
5. Medical Uses of Gold
6. Uses of Gold in Aerospace
7. Uses of Gold Awards and Status Symbols
8. Uses of Gold in Glassmaking
9. Gold Gilding and Gold Leaf
So I can't see a way for gold to ever collapse. But if I think of stability of Bitcoin, in the other hand, and I am not so sure...
Gold as a jewelry IS money function. People was really picky about how to spend their precious survival time in the ancient. They made jewelry FOR survival (trade with other tribes for food), not because of shininess. (They had none of the uses you described above, yet they choose it for money - scarcity, durability).
I agree on the the industrial uses obviously, but that could be said about tin, led, glucose-fructose syrup or palladium as well. Gold will ends with the dawn of matter replicators. (Matter is just a set of information of basic sub atomic constituents. But pure information - as digits - can have infinitely greater energy requirements, for they are unbound by matter, and hence can have totally arbitrary energy consumption, which is not true for matter state - they are very limited versus information's energy entropy).
On a side note for my own (?) entertainment: the universe IS information. Every matter is built from the same building blocks, the only difference comes from difference of the "number" of sub atomic particles and energy level spread in a 11th dimension time space continuum (~temperature). The underlying principle is INFORMATION OF STATE, it is in itself an energy state (kinda of a spin number - half, 1, 1,5, 2 rotation wise in the 3D) which is unbounded by - the observed - time and space reality (but still bounded by gravity, as it is a special physical force capable to interact with multiple spatial dimensions - spatial as time).
The 20 year battle between Hawkings vs Lobachevsky was about the infinity of information (do black holes annihilate entropic state or not) - as the only reality which never is destroyed. So, information - which can be represented ALSO in digits, and can have an arbitrarily huge, possibly near infinite creating energy requirement -, which is the ultimate basis for all reality.
If bitcoin is only information in the quantum sense - which is pretty close, regarding the possible entropy of (2 on the 256)-1 variation on Earthly measures, i still would bet on BTC vs Gold on BTC, because gold is uniform, any gold atom with the same molecular state is the same INFORMATION WISE, but EVERY BTC fixed with address spreads around this unique number (which is a greater entropic state than gold's "uniqueness").
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