[fennecfoxy]

Probably mostly because it was scarce. Additionally because it would've been the only metal that didn't tarnish compared to other metals that did.

I mean gold has always been and will always be (until we start space mining I guess) scarce, can see similar effects for things like aluminium, for example here: https://clintonaluminum.com/aluminum-was-once-worth-more-tha....

So based on that I would say it was purely thanks to scarcity. Money is used to represent x human effort/time after all; it takes time to find the gold, then time to process it. But the same applies to various other weird currencies used in the world like seashells/beads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_money#:~:text=Shell%20mo....

I feel like there's an intermediate step with these where seashells/beads/similar objects had cultural significance and therefore value because they had to be found (and sometimes worked into beads). It's a step from pure trading of useful items like a knife or an item of clothing to an intermediate currency like seashells, then to precious metals (which are still valuable even if melted down) to what we have now (currency as a symbol of trust that the currency is worth what it's worth as enforced by a government or some other system).