Ok..lets take a look at PM's...heck..dollars or seashells..any physical store of value.
The problem I have is that advancements in 3D printing have reached beyond the micro scale and into the nano scale. I dont think it will be to long(<100 years?)before replicators are a thing.
Deep dive.
The idea of being able to materialize any object out of thin air, as the metaphor suggests, is a bit tough to wrap ones mind around. First, understand that quantum mechanics tells us that there is not really such a thing as empty space. Even in a vacuum, ultra-tiny particles can be found constantly coming into existence for extremely short periods of time. Although these particles are quickly annihilated when they collide with a corresponding anti-particle made from antimatter, they nevertheless exist ... and in the moment when they do exist they seemingly emerge "out of thin air."
Now imagine if you had a super-intense laser(which shot pure electromagnetic energy)that was strong enough to rip these tiny particles away from their anti-particles so that they didn't collide. If they don't collide, then they won't get annihilated. So in other words, such a laser would make it possible to end up with real particles with mass just by shooting your laser (pure energy) into a void region of space.
And it just so happens that such a laser is in the works. A major European project is now building the most powerful laser ever generated, known as the Extreme Light Infrastructure, or ELI. This laser will be able to provide beams with a power of 10 PW (or 10,000,000,000,000,000 watts), which is orders of magnitude (10 times, to be exact) more powerful than any existing laser facilities.
More importantly, ELI should be strong enough to produce particles out of a vacuum. While generating a handful of particles is a long way from generating a convincing steak and lobster dinner, the technology at least makes "Star Trek"-like replicators conceivable as a real-life possibility. They can no longer be dismissed merely as a convenient fiction for sci-fi writers. That's kind of exciting, if not downright mind-bending.
As Arthur C. Clarke once famously said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Here are some relevant articles about MIP's and biological printing which is at the cutting edge of this technology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_imprintinghttps://books.google.com/books?id=QYrOBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q&f=falsehttp://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a14528/the-chemistry-3d-printer-can-craft-rare-medicinal-molecules-from-scratch/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5380738/Some people go on about crypto and transaction speed...and convenience..oh..let me scan that QR code.. and zip!
Most of these things are not what attracts me to bitcoin..its having the immutable proof that what I hodl is not a counterfeit.
Do I think having a diversifiied portfolio is a bad thing? Heck no...Do I think physical money and PM's are going away...probably not..but there will come a time when it will be in jeopardy due to technology.
