[rainsford]

I honestly don't know how much of gold's value is driven by practical uses rather than speculation, but I think there's an important difference between "some practical use" and "no practical use" when it comes to commodities. The practical uses mean gold is unlikely to ever be worthless, but the same can't be said for a cryptocurrency.

Even from a speculative standpoint, gold or similar commodities have the advantage of being actually support limited. Now obviously the supply of an individual cryptocurrency can be limited, such as with Bitcoin, but the supply of cryptocurrency in general is essentially unlimited with very little barrier to entry. That's not great for even speculative investment, since you're essentially betting on the continued popularity of whatever currency you invested in with relatively little history to support that trend.

[njarboe]

Does it really matter if the value of something is 95% speculative or 100%? Loosing 95% of the value of your investment is not a lot different than 100%.

[NAHWheatCracker]

Bitcoin is certainly extremely high on the speculative spectrum, but claiming gold is anywhere near the same level of speculation is specious.

Gold has the Lindy effect going for it. Humans have been trading it for thousands of years. Bitcoin has been around for 16 years.

Gold has industrial uses and if its value dropped, its uses would expand. Bitcoin has no such inherent supply-demand curve.

[njarboe]

I like gold and bitcoin. But productive assets seem more useful to hold in general. Fiat, gold, and bitcoin are debt tokens on future humans. I'd rather own things than future human labor. Feels a bit like owning people.