agreed - except i think you're an optimist. i give gold and silver less than 100 years as a store of wealth. nope, there's no long-term future in gold.
hell, there's roughly 25
tons of the stuff in every cubic mile of seawater (concentration varies by location), and almost twice that of silver; according to the USGS:
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/whyoceansalty.htmlhumans have always been pretty good at extracting things from other things - and sooner or later, seawater will be cracked as well. there's been folks working on it for quite a while. sooner or later...
Well then, all we need is a big water magnet. I'm going to be rich, lol. Very good points, in a cage match between bitcoins and gold for the long term... I don't know, hard to call. If bitcoins are still around in 2 year, I know who I believe would win. It just needs to make it through these first few years.