[eloff]

It does, but that only establishes a low floor on the price of gold. If it had no value as a store of wealth, it would plummet in value to a tiny fraction of what it is actually worth.

Bitcoin has a floor of 0 in theory.

I would also guess that makes gold better as a store of wealth. But given that the price rarely ever approaches that floor means it might not matter. And bitcoin is harder to steal (at least you don't have to pay someone to guard it in a vault), easier to divide and transact and verify ownership. I don't claim to know how it will turn out.

[torgian]

I wonder about the value of gold. You might buy gold, but can you actually, physically hold it and own it?

As far as I know, the only way you can buy gold is if you either buy jewelry or are a jeweler to make said jewelry. Otherwise you’re just buying stocks which could theoretically be lost in the digital wind.

[rootusrootus]

You can definitely buy gold coins. I have one in my desk drawer right now, even.

[torgian]

I wonder how much that is marked up, however. Compared to just buying bare gold, I mean.

Obviously even bare gold would have a markup, but probably not as much as coins.

[reducesuffering]

Depends on the weight of the coin, but 1+ oz. can be as low as 1% above spot (bare gold price), where 1/20 oz. can be as high as 10% above spot. So 1-10% markup for most purposes

[zepto]

> easier to divide and transact and verify ownership

Yes, in the presence of high tech infrastructure, but otherwise impossible.

Gold coins carry on working no matter what the nazis do to the internet and the chip foundries.

[slashdev]

The Nazis famously confiscated gold. At least if they shutdown the internet you still own your bitcoin.

[zepto]

The Nazis can confiscate the hard drives where your keys are stored.

And - it’s not going to help you against the Nazis if you can’t transact it.

As to gold - that misses the point. Of course it can be taken from you.

However unless that happens, you can still transact it. People escaped the Nazis using gold to pay their way.

[eloff]

It's better in some ways and worse in others. It could be a lot easier to hide a key than a gold bar. You could still use bitcoin to buy your way to freedom, and there would be a black market for it if there's any way to get online, which there will be. The value is supported outside the country.

It's not clear to me that gold is superior in that use case.

[zepto]

Yes, a key might be easier to hide than a gold bar.

But some gold coins might be a lot easier to hide than computers.

> You could still use bitcoin to buy your way to freedom

Only if you can access the network.

That’s the point.

I don’t see why you say there will be a way to get online. We see coups where the internet is taken down quite regularly.