Quote from: MacFall on May 17, 2011, 05:11:48 PM

Quote from: forever-d on May 17, 2011, 12:05:53 PM

imagine if this was 1850 ...

Quote from: MacFall on May 16, 2011, 11:11:27 PM

I think that ~~gold and silver~~ horses will be the most widely used ~~money~~ form of transport, as they have been for the last 5,000 years of human history, and ~~bitcoin~~ railways will merely be ~~measured in grams of gold instead of dollars~~ used by the rich.

Careful with using history as a guide. Longevity by itself does not guarantee stability.

There is nothing special about gold. The only reason it has lasted as a money for 5,000 years is because there was no superior alternative for certain financial needs. P2P cryptocurrencies may change that situation in a very short time.

IMO there is a real possiblility that gold will lose its status as a major exchange vehicle within less than a decade. The result will be a crash in the price of gold that reflects its value in jewellery and electronics alone.

Gold has been used as a money for most of humanity's civilized history because it possesses all the necessary qualities for money: it is homogeneous, divisible, durable, and scarce. Bitcoin possesses all of those qualities, but it isn't as durable as gold. The fact is that bitcoin's usefulness as money is dependent on all the same things that gold is, and then it is also dependent on other factors as well. Gold carries no risks for technical failure. Gold will still be useful as money if the internet stops working. Bitcoin has advantages over gold, but they all depend on technology never failing to function as it is now. I don't trust that to be the case, and I suspect most other people won't, either. I value gold for its independence from technology.

As for me, if the internet stopped working, I suspect I'd have little use for lumps of shinny yellow metal. For me if the internet no longer functioned wealth would be in canned food, guns, ammo, shelter, medicines and basic tools. I guess wealth is a matter of circumstance.