> In times of truly global trouble, nobody will accept bitcoins as payment for bread.
That is true for gold as well. (Ofc not 'nobody', just 'almost nobody'.)
That is true for gold as well. (Ofc not 'nobody', just 'almost nobody'.)
Interestingly, I went and looked up what the price of gold would actually be if it was solely used for industrial processes, and it's hard to actually figure out: it's speculated on a lot, but world gold demand in 2019 was 4355.7t. Of that, 48.5% was for the jewelery industry, and 7.48% for technology - the rest accounted for by investment. So industrially world demand for gold for productive or decorative uses is about 2439.2 tons (as of 2019), whereas mining production in that year was about 3,300 tons.
So about 45% of world gold demand is essentially from financial speculators. To figure out pricing you'd have to really get into the current mining economics for technological use...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in... https://www.statista.com/statistics/264628/world-mine-produc... https://www.gold.org/about-gold/gold-supply
Not even close. Gold is a tangible psychical asset, a finite resource on Earth that can not only make valuables you can wear or leave as heirloom but is also a really good heat-reflector and electricity conductor needed in anything from semiconductors and precision electronics to supercars and satellites. Without it, the global electronics industry would suffer terribly.
It seems more likely that people conflict zones would be happy to accept gold (with the assumption it will be valuable in the future/in more stable areas) than bitcoins that require electricity, stable internet and tons of disk space.
The problem with Bitcoin is it's not a physical thing at the end of the day: nobody mints jewellery out of bitcoin.
A golden chain with a gold-plated USB key containing a Bitcoin wallet might have a considerable bling factor though. :)
That is the case for countless things. Is a corporation a real thing or a belief? Where is the physical entity Facebook or the physical entity Apple? Is it the people working for them? Their logo? Their contracts? It's all that and a collective belief in an abstract entity. That's true for fiat or states too, even if that belief can be enforced through e.g. army, that doesn't change the fact that's is a collective belief in something that has no material reality.
If your state demands your taxes be paid in FIAT, no matter what you wan't, you'll be paying in FIAT (or fined, or in jail, or depending on the circunstances maybe dead).
When the taxman comes knocking on their door, do you think this person will escape by saying "sorry, I don't have fiat available to pay for the taxes, come back next year!"? No, the taxman will respond by either seizing their assets or forcing the person to liquidate into fiat.
What makes Bitcoin (or crypto) different in that regard?
bitcoin acts more like a commodity than fiat. Bitcoin is backed by the laws of mathematics, rather than laws of nature (which is the case for gold).
Your claim that bitcoin is not fiat because it's backed by the laws of mathematics makes as much sense as claiming that the dollar is not fiat because it's backed by the printing press. This is not what 'backed' means in the context of money.