That's getting hit by 2011 AG5

Yes, if communication among populations has increased, you can assume it has changed for the upper echelons too.

This is like betting on black and red at the same time in roulette: you're going to win no matter what

France was invaded during WWII, as was almost the entirety of Europe. Russia was perceived to be a looming menace in the period afterward. Would you want to cash out your bank account and keep it at home with a mob of thugs eyeing you from across the street?

Granted, transatlantic shipping always carries some risk, but the deliveries were made without event to the west. Any number of vessels were capable of carrying nearly all of Europe's gold in one run.

Today, dozens of supertankers are capable of transporting every above-ground ounce in the world with plenty of room to spare across the Atlantic in less than a week, and around the world in less than a month. As foolish as that would be, the capability is there - and not much slower than air freight. We may as well be arguing about China's woes in obtaining a measly 60+ tons.

And don't forget about teleportation! It may never be possible for complex organics, but a single atom is conceivable. But by the time that's feasible, we may have more pressing concerns

The big gold cube might fall to the center of the earth because it's so heavy. Like the missing pyramids. You don't know about them? That's 'cause they sunk!


Yup. The dollar is a claim on the nation's accumulated wealth, held mainly in the form of gold. Without convertibility, you may as well have bought shares of a company that the company refuses to recognize.

Us phyzzz holders can only hope. Please hold the war, famine, and roving gangs

The damage need not come from physical sources.

BLACK DETH OF TEH INTERWEBZ!!

It isn't likely, but the possibility remains - localized disruptions are more likely. The financial system is too crucial to modern life to leave to chance.

Seatbelts are annoying, cumbersome, and can cause more harm than help if used improperly. But in a rollover accident, you'll be glad you weren't ejected and crushed or dismembered.

What about increased carrying capacity, range, and fuel efficiency?

I agree that gold wouldn't be necessary, but it provides that final bit of protection. One of Bitcoin's main vulnerabilities is the communications infrastructure. If that's incapacitated in a major way, even temporarily, transactions using Bitcoin would be burdensome at best without some system developed for easy offline non-digital exchange.

Having gold available would be the safety net that allows things to keep going more smoothly and reliably than any centrally managed interim solution. We all grumble about saving for a rainy day when we could make use of it now, but we're awfully glad we have it when it's needed.

Effectively. Gold as a relatively stationary reserve distributed globally; Bitcoin as a trinary money.

I use the term trinary because Bitcoin satisfies Triffin's dilemma, acting simultaneously and indefinitely as a Store of Value and Means of Exchange, with the resulting effect of being a reliable Metric of Value.

Right now the battle is to control the majority of all available gold supply. As long as there is still physical present that can be extracted from current holders, and no other catastrophic catalysts occur, the game continues. Basically, anyone who can be persuaded or forced to sell his physical holdings is a target and will be squeezed until there is barely any but direct mine supply available from mining operations that can't be nationalized.

That's when revaluation is guaranteed. It's a possibility at any point from now until then - the probability just increases until that limit is reached.

The concern that tvbcof expressed about excessive concentration is real and valid. If there is too great a centralized holding of gold, whatever authority has it will wield an undue amount of influencing power. Yet again, that's where Bitcoin comes in

See the bolded parts.

Using gold as a reference/reserve and marking to market daily as the Euro does, trends can be spotted quickly. It isn't necessary to transfer gold back and forth constantly, only at thresholds - e.g. BoP settlement is initiated at 5% of GDP. That could take months or even years. With daily feedback, the sample size should be great enough for financial firms to take rapid corrective action by slowing investments in less effective ventures while increasing others.

In concert with Bitcoin, balance of payments transactions could actually be conducted daily. This way, there would be an imbalance in the ratio of Bitcoin to gold present between two separate entities (banks, corporations, nations, etc). Failure of a cryptocurrency is necessarily greater than that of gold (at present), so there would be a somewhat greater risk to holding Bitcoins over gold. This incentive would spur the primary Bitcoin holder to acquire more gold.

This is where Bitcoin comes in. Rather than being restrained in the physical space but unrestricted in the financial arena (leading to fractionalization), with Bitcoin there are limits in both the physical and finance. Fractionalization can then only occur outside of Bitcoin, allowing for a steady ratio between gold and Bitcoin, unfettered by fiat issues.

How much gold do you need? How many gold dealers are there around the world? Don't they generally have several dozen to a few hundred ounces available most of the time, even in poorer countries?

Do you walk around with wads of cash in your pocket, just in case you need to buy a condo on a whim? Why would you have to do the same with gold?

If I want to transfer my gold assets from Calgary to Quito, I can contact my gold dealer and have him get in touch with a Quito dealer. If he has a contact there already, great - there's a trusted network already set up. If not, he can inform the Quito dealer how much I purchased and then digitally exchange the balance using a contemporary currency.

When I go to Quito, I can either pick up my metal from the dealer there or keep it there in storage for a fee if that service is offered. Either way, my gold has moved without moving. If I need to move tons at a time, there would simply have to be larger nodes involved as close as possible to the destination.

In a stable worldwide economy, moving that much around would be exceedingly rare, especially with gold revalued into the tens of thousands of dollars level. How often would most people need to transfer an ounce at a value of an average American's yearly salary. Using Bitcoin instead of fiat for transfer would be more reliable, safer, and definitely faster for large amounts.

A global financial system with gold integrated into it is viable now just using gold dealers - not even banks. The physical asset doesn't have to move but locally!

Too hot

It doesn't take long, but it generally can't be exchanged directly. That kills the convenience factor.

Yes, but it's officially treated as a tradeable asset, not a currency. Treating it as a currency would be very simple in practice.

Centralization does introduce additional risks. Decentralization, just like with public banking, modifies the incentive structure at a cost of redundancy. The greater the number of relatively equal participants, the harder it is to game the system. It's easier to work with the system than force it to submit. Distributed storage of gold at local or regional public banks would be the same as distributed fiat holdings, with the same effect.

Gold alone cannot be divided to a high enough degree. Fiat alone, in the hands of a central and insulated authority, cannot be prevented from diluting to too high a degree. Neither can be used alone in the context of growing human social structures. Of course, Bitcoin is proving that it can take the place of both, but in reality there is going to be a transition period - that is best handled by a modernized gold ratio system integrated with the fiat system.

I don't care what you think is 'cute'. You didn't provide a definition yourself, so unless you're going to do so, troll elsewhere.


Yes, liable to taxation, etc. So what? The supply cannot be fabricated the fiat is, which means theft is not possible in the manner it is with a strictly fiat system. Nor does it imply confiscation. And it certainly isn't as though the banking system is incapable of accommodating another foreign exchange unit, because that's all gold's representation would be - another currency. Stored in a vault, the amount digitally credited to an account, digitally accessible, and digitally transferable regardless of where the metal is stored.