[throwaway2048]

the value of gold is in no strong way tied to its industrial uses, the concept of "intrinsic value" being what drives market value is silly. If gold had zero industrial usage it would still be almost as valuable as it is now.

After all how much of money's value is due to the fact that it has a decent BTU value per weight in a furnace?

Most money is as purely a "digital fiction" as bitcoin is these days.

[ardit33]

That's incorrect. Gold became valuable in historic times because of its awesome properties as a metal: Doesn't rust, easy malleable, beautiful without much processing(i.e. compared to rough steel), high conductivity of electricity and heat... etc..

At some point, on some societies, things like rare sea shells, or big stones, were used as currency, but they didn't survive times for a good reason: No real use in real life.

Same with bitcoin, unless it starts having real use in real life, it wont survive. People buy it because they expect it will go up. It is like the Kim Kardashian of currencies, popular just because it is popular. But once that expectation is broken (i.e. of bitcoin always rising in value), than the downspiral starts.