[eliasgriffin]

> inherently worthless

I think you are misusing this phrase. Gold has the second best electrical conductance, is virtually indestructible, highly biodegradable, a superb heat conductor, and almost impervious to the effects of water, air, and oxygen.

This is why it is heavily used in the aerospace industry and is vital to the exploration of Space.

I'll emphasize a prior point for clarity. Gold Can’t Be Destroyed, only Dissolved.

[BjoernKW]

Those properties are not what people commonly think of when they attribute value to gold, though.

In particular, the idea that gold is a crisis-proof currency has nothing to do with these properties, but rather the notion that because its supply is limited (in contrast to fiat money) and it can't be reproduced or counterfeited, it will be accepted as a medium of exchange even in the most dire economic scenarios such as a complete societal collapse.

Perhaps paradoxically, though, in such a scenario gold has particularly little - if any - remaining economic value.

[sokoloff]

Gold is not "highly biodegradable". Are you confusing that with biocompatible?

[eliasgriffin]

No, I did not mean that although it is both.

References:

(Direct quote) How Gold Is Used In Aerospace: Gold Plating In Satellites https://www.valencesurfacetech.com/the-news/gold-plating-in-...

Biodegradable Gold Nanoclusters with Improved Excretion Due to pH-Triggered Hydrophobic-to-Hydrophilic Transition https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.9b13813

Gold nanoparticles: Synthesis properties and applications https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S101836472...

[sokoloff]

The innovation in the second link is an innovation precisely because gold is not biodegradable.