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Comment by 177tcca | Hacker News Reader

Same can be said for gold.

Are most users even capable of melting it into tools when there's nobody that wants to trade for it?

The argument for gold is that it isn't 100% a speculative investment. According to Wikipedia(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold) 50% of gold's use case is in making jewelry and 10% is used for industry. On the other hand, Bitcoin isn't used for anything, except as for a speculative investment, not even as a currency or as a "decentralized PayPal".

> The argument for gold is that it isn't 100% a speculative investment. According to Wikipedia(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold) 50% of gold's use case is in making jewelry and 10% is used for industry. On the other hand, Bitcoin isn't used for anything, except as for a speculative investment, not even as a currency or as a "decentralized PayPal".

Also, Gold has literally thousands of years of cultural precedent as being a "valuable thing." Bitcoin, not so much.

Liquid value that's easily transferred has utility on its own.

It's not a genuine argument to claim that "bitcoin isn't used for anything".

That's the value of the Bitcoin system, not of a single Bitcoin. Gold can provide utility by itself, for example, you can make jewelry from it.

Do you think the value of Facebook stock is in the tangible worth of their building, or IP?

For the vast majority of people Bitcoin in its current form provides a worse user experience than PayPal, VISA, etc.. because the fees are a lot higher and the transaction times are longer.

If you want to buy $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin the $5-$50 transaction fee doesn't matter. For the majority of people it matters though.

What would you rather have magically transferred to you and why?

All the gold in the world or all the bitcoins in the world?

Right, where would people even get 700 B.C. technology to “use” gold!?

(Of course gold has intrinsic value! Just because you can’t use a thing, doesn’t make it worthless to me, I’ll still buy your gold despite you not knowing anything but how to pull it from your pocket)

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