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by dagmx 1886 days ago
Gold is a usable, consumable product.

Unlike Bitcoin, the value of gold in a given market has a tangible backing that isn't purely speculative.

1 comments

It appears less than 8% of gold's annual production is for industrial use [1]. If you remove the "store of value" demand from its price, then the residual value is peanuts.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in...

It's like saying, "Bitcoin has residual value because you could always sell the GPU mining equipment"

Are we just glossing over the 48% listed for jewelry which is a huge market?

I'm not sure your analogy of GPU mining hardware makes sense to me. You can have Bitcoin without having GPUs. Just like you can have gold without having a mining operation.

So if Bitcoin crashes to some hypothetical value tied to consumability, you're left with nothing. Whereas gold is still something you could sell for industrial and fashion use.

I don't think there's a good analogy between cryptocurrency and gold because they're not very similar at all unless people only narrow the scope to long term holdings and ignore risk/speculation.

The jewelry use is 99% tied to gold's perceived valuation and is used as a way to display opulence and wealth. It is just an extension of gold being a store of value.