Gold can be physically held, has other valuable properties instead of scarsity. It is only subject to theft by people coming to your house/bank. Has been a safe store of value for hundreds of years.
Crypto is good for worldwide transactions with a good level of anonimity. It however can potentially be stolen or cracked making it easier in use and abuse. It is in it's infancy so we don't fully trust it yet.
As with every investment you need to split risk. So it is good to have both in your portfolio.
I therefore think people will still go back to gold.
People very rarely store their gold in their home, I told it already but since you didn't read anything on this topic... on the top of that it's often not covered by insurances. There is no anonymity in cryptos as soon you exchange it with fiat and the money hits your bank account.
It's like if you hide your face with a balaclava but on your t-shirt, it's written "Hey it's me! Wilhelm!"
Well gold shares aren't gold so let's put that aside.
Almost all cash in countries are no longer backed by gold or silver so keeping your gold in the bank is an IOY. Cash is also an IOY. IOY is not gold.
The federal reserve is most likely empty since my country and other countries are having problems getting gold back from the USA.
More and more people are no longer trusting banks and are physically storing gold and silver.
The topic talks about going back to gold. I interpreted it like having gold in the olden days. When you bite your gold dollar to test if it real.
I know there is no full anonymity that's why I wrote "a good level of". Ever tried tracing a coin to a person? No well it's not as simple as you might think. Especially if you run it through a few trading sites or satoshi dice mixers or swap it around through shitcoins or sell it through coldwallet handovers. You can only figure out the person after he/she has bought or sold Bitcoin and the providing a link to an account in the ledger.
In your analogy it would be more like.
- You buy a balaclava.
- Cops see you in a balaclava.
- They figure out the type of the balaclava.
- They trace it back to the store(s).
- They get the financial records.
- They trace it to you.
- They then need to figure out if you used your creditcard.
- They then need to figure out if you used the balaclava.
Not as simple.