[waterlesscloud]

A true story- My grand-uncle, who had lived through the Great Depression, never trusted banks. So he buried a considerable amount of cash in the forest behind his house in mason jars (seriously!).

When he died, my grand-aunt, who always thought he was being silly, went out in the woods and retrieved all the jars.

The cash had rotted and deteriorated to the point that it was unspendable.

However, she was able to work with the US Treasury to sort through the remains and identify the bills and replace them with new currency.

There's not really a bitcoin lesson here, just some family lore that seemed relevant. :-)

[dnautics]

this is why we buy gold and silver.

[StavrosK]

Isn't the commission too expensive?

[nationcrafting]

No. You can usually buy physical at spot + 1 or 2% max. In the UK, coins like Sovereigns or Britannias are capital gains tax free, so you typically pay a bit more for them, like 4 or 5% above spot. But then you won't have the headache of remembering what you bought them for when you sell them (aside from the pleasure of saving CGT-free).

[Canada]

Worth it for long term storage like that.

These days spending old banknotes is problematic, even if they're in perfect condition.

Some people love gold, some people hate it, but everyone agrees it's the only thing that really has zero counterparty risk.

[dnautics]

I wouldn't say zero! Also, moving forward things like planetary resources could challenge the stability of gold, but it's still pretty good and fairly liquid. For me, it proved more liquid than bitcoin; Exchanging bitcoin took 3 days coinbase + ACH; I liquidated a gold piece in an afternoon, could have gotten cash, but mailed a check into my bank and had the funds in 2 days (still faster than bitcoin, even with the USPS in the way)

[dnautics]

let's say the trade commission was a horrifying 50%, and in the best case scenario for the other direction the treasury exchanged those bills exactly one for one. Would you rather have $1000 or gold from 50 years ago valued at $500 from 50 years ago? Even if you think gold is in a bubble, and, say worth $200/oz instead of $1600/oz, you would have far more than 5 oz worth from 500 1963 dollars.