Quote from: db on February 11, 2011, 12:08:20 AM

Ruthenium is a metal similar to gold, just as rare and would be just as good as money. Still, only gold is used as a medium of exchange. There is no particular reason for that other than tradition and expectations because gold was first.

If you actually look at the numbers and do the math, it looks to me that Ruthenium is actually 20-40 times more rare than gold, and its production is 100's of times lower than gold.

Gold was naturally chosen historically as "money", because it was just rare enough among the "precious metals." Given current population and trade volume, gold has become impractical as a medium of exchange also.

It's a hassle to handle even as 1 gram bullion. Calculate how many grams of gold you could give to each member of just the adult population of China, if you used all the estimated worldwide gold reserves. Looks to me like less than 200 grams. That's not to mention all the gold used in jewelry, industry, etc. There would be nothing left for B2B trade, etc.

So, gold didn't become the traditional medium of exchange because it was first; there were certain market forces that made it so. Those same forces removed it as a primary medium of exchange, imho, when population and trade increased. Now, it's just a great value store, and impractical as money.

Seems to me that if superior cryptocurrencies appear, being first will not preserve Bitcoin's value indefinitely.