[snickerbockers]

What is it about gold, anyways? None of its useful properties were known until recently (and mostly overhyped and upsold tbh, at least as far as those stupid cables go). Are we really just instinctively attracted to shiny metals? Or do people like it as a status symbol?

(not to act like im above it all, i still have my gold-plated pokemon jigglypuff trading card from burger king in 1999 and i often use golden paint on model kits).

[paxys]

What is it about Bitcoin over the thousands of other altcoins that have the exact same properties? A large enough group of people picked Bitcoin and said "this is the one". That's basically it. Same thing happened with gold at some point in human history and we just stuck to it.

[wcfrobert]

Bitcoin is different.

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? How come his Bitcoin holdings - now worth more than $100 billion dollars - have remained untouched since 2010? How can any one human resist that kind of temptation? I would be digging landfill sites if I lost my wallet worth $100 billion. The launch of Bitcoin also coincided with the 2008 financial crisis. The first block had the text: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks" embedded, etc.

None of the altcoins have this level of myths and legend. You need this kind of supernatural story to start a new fiat, digital gold, religion, and whatever collective fiction you can think of.

[ryandvm]

He's probably alive and has just lost the keys to his wallet.

I too would retreat to the farthest corners of the earth never to be seen again if I had misplaced 100 billion dollars.

[skybrian]

I imagine Satoshi Nakamoto has much less name recognition than Bitcoin? A simpler theory is that the first popular cryptocurrency became more and more famous due to a snowball effect, and nothing else is able to catch up.

Apparently the first popular stablecoin can't be beat either, despite its sketchy origins and a lot of bad press.

If beyond a certain point, only fame matters, it's kind of depressing from a technological innovation point of view.

[keiferski]

Both gold and bitcoin also ostensibly have no real founder / owner. Most other alt coins are run by a particular organization with its own interests.

[amflare]

The short version is that its in limited supply, it has luxury value (think jewelry or artisan crafting), and its doesn't corrode. So it's a supply and demand issue. There is basically always the same amount, kings want it, and it doesn't ever disappear.

It s superior to currency because while (for example) the US dollar will always have value as long as you pay taxes with it, there is not a limited supply

It is superior to bartering because while (for example) a chicken has value due to its utility as food, it naturally disappears (because you ate it or it died).

Gold and other precious metals sort of sit in the middle ground as the "next best thing" to almost everything that humans want. So it remains a useful means of preserving and communicating value.

[danielodievich]

Gold has always had value to humans because it is very non-reactive and doesn't corred, and it was easy to smelt and work with since prehistoric times. It is also one of very few metals that is not boring gray/silver. It therefore has always been part of ornamentation and religion. In last century it became useful due to its great conductivity, and so it's used in semiconductors. If you have a gilded book at home, also gold.

[floxy]

>Are we really just instinctively attracted to shiny metals?

Probably. https://www.desertusa.com/animals/packrats.html

[edschofield]

Here's an interesting way to understand it:

https://pricedingold.com

The true value of gold is quite stable over time (since new gold is mined at a slow rate). Fiat currencies are constantly being debased. Hard assets fluctuate up and down relative to gold.

[skybrian]

Historically, gold was too expensive to use for everyday transactions (and still is) and most people (who were peasants) would never see it. So it seems like the sort of thing where prices are set by the rich, who can afford it.

[Ekaros]

Longest lasting mass psychosis... So at point when everything else looks even more irrational it probably is not worst move. At least there will most likely be some real believers you can pawn it off for something...

[atarian]

Scarcity

[FuriouslyAdrift]

Things are worth exactly how much someone else is willing to pay for it...

[AnimalMuppet]

Basically, the chemical composition of the earth's crust isn't going to change any time soon. That means that the supply of gold is going to increase only slowly.

In contrast, Trump has been making noises about wanting to replace Powell as chair of the Fed, because Powell won't dance to Trump's tune. I do not want a world where Trump can determine (even if indirectly) the value of the dollar, or the interest rate, or anything in that vicinity.

So I trust the dollar a lot less than I did six months ago. In contrast, gold doesn't care what Trump's policy is.

[floxy]

>That means that the supply of gold is going to increase only slowly.

https://www.space.com/astronomy/earth/earths-next-mini-moon-...

[mrguyorama]

The problem with this is that if you live in the US and Trump does something that stupid then owning a bunch of gold will not save you, because you still live in this society (assuming you live in the US of course!)

All the Germans who had great gold reserves in 1930 still ended up fighting in WW2. Hell, many of them were Jewish and had that gold stolen and sent to the Swiss for safekeeping by the Nazi state. The danger to their society was not hyperinflation, it was a hostile government sending them to die for stupid reasons, and literally like a hundred people, or fewer, choosing out of utter stupidity and an insane ideology based purely on ignorance, forcing everyone into a bad situation.

There is no safety, of any kind, under authoritarianism. Gold will not save you.

[AnimalMuppet]

Well, it will save you from inflation. From bullets? Not so much.

[cobra19]

Originally there was no such thing as property. Some of the first property we had was animals. That's inconvenient enough thanks to lack of portability, but the bigger issue is atomicity. Metals were the intuitive solution to both problems, they can be cut into convenient denominations and also can be melted back into larger ones.

That useful property was well known (and notably, other currencies such as shells and precious stones lacked this). In addition as others have said, gold was both scarce and had a low melting point. However, other metals had these properties too, and sure enough, some cultures did anchor their currencies on metals other than gold.

We are not "just instinctively attracted to shiny metals". FHN.