[canoebuilder]

strictly as an investment vehicle

If by strictly, he means solely, then something that is strictly an investment vehicle makes no sense. The piper must be paid at some point.

I can invest in shares of a company, but the shares aren't strictly an investment vehicle, they serve as a way for the company to acquire capital to put toward it's mission.

[nylonstrung]

Gold is strictly an investment vehicle for all intents and purposes. The vast majority of its price is due to recognition as a store of value vs inherent utility.

It doesn't require a 'mission' to have value- the fact enough of society (still a small minority which actually invests or knows the price) recognizes that others recognize it has value allows it to fulfill exactly this function

[canoebuilder]

Doesn't gold's role as a store of value ultimately rest on it's underlying potential utility and it's material scarcity. Crypto currency is anything but scarce these days, certain brands of crypto may be more or less scarce, but gold is not separated from other elements by a brand name over-top of substantially similar functioning and composition.

[nylonstrung]

Gold's value is ostensibly about it's utility but the price is completely disconnected from said utility. A massive amount of the supply is devoted to speculation and jewelry, which itself is a reflection of the arbitrary value and price vs any actual physical properties of it. In many ways its value is still a function of properties it had hundreds of years ago that made it eminently suitable for coinage and the belief networks have persisted.

If we weren't using gold in this way the price would indisputably be a fraction of what it is vs if the industrial applications stopped it would definitely still retail value.

Bitcoin is limited to 21M coins and we are at 19M of them. It is functionally more scarce than gold in that once we hit 21M that's it- we can't develop some new technology that unlocks more gold like asteroid mining.

[prawn]

Broadly speaking, isn't it possible for Bitcoin to be largely an investment now whose true usefulness is still to come?