It really depends on your definition of "a collapse scenario" are we talking fiat currency collapse of a single country, a global collapse of fiat currencies, a single country/global collapse of government systems due to wide scale emergency like you see in horror movies, etc?
Two types. Collapse of the financial system with capital controls that causes much hardship, but doesn't go feral. The more severe type of collapse to consider is chaos and warlordism such as the Serbian crisis.
First of all, Bitcoin/digital currencies are still very much in their infancy. Right now, its all a proof of concept. If you want to claim that digital currencies are stable enough to overtake the traditional fiat system, or replace them in case of some major global issue, I would disagree with that, and I'm speaking as someone who is a huge fan of cryptocurrencies.
Change is much faster in the Knowledge Age. A quarterback doesn't throw the football to where the receiver is now, but where he will be in 2 seconds from now (which is many meters away).
If you think in a scenario major enough to interrupt global economies/governments, that people will continue to keep network infrastructure maintained and the blockchain moving along, I'd beg to differ.
The elite will never let their control grid go down. They will engineer a monetary reset with the necessary suffering and chaos to get nation-states to acquiesce to the SDRs. Jim Rickards latest book applies.
Digital currencies heavily rely on major communication services and the power grid which would be disrupted in a global catastrophe.
Depends on the type of crisis. Unless we enter a full scale global hot war, we are not going to have chaos and warlordism in every country in the world. No the more likely scenario is the one Jim Rickards explains.
Things that are not necessary if you are trying to survive. In addition, if you take development and stagnate it because the Bitcoin dev teams are busy trying to keep the wolves out of their chicken coops, best case scenario, Bitcoin would be put on a backburner until things restore themselves.
Actually not. Humans work in teams with maximum division-of-labor. Someone gathers food, while someone else is the solving technical problems.
Bitcoin is relatively difficult to get into even today. You need a couple hundred dollar smartphone or laptop at the very least, electricity, internet connection, and relatively elevated technical knowledge.
Nope. I made $7000+ blogging on Steemit and converted it to BTC at poloniex. Things are changing so fast, you aren't even paying attention.
Silver is very heavily involved in medicine, antibiotics, etc, so I think it would fare pretty well as well.
Handwaving. That has nothing to do with function as money.
If we are talking about a collapse situation where trust is lost in government currencies, and they collapse but there is no major chaos, I think Bitcoin and metals will do pretty well.
Digital currency will do exceptionally well. Precious metals are going to fail you in every way. Mark my word.
Otherwise, I'd invest in Solar cells, copper/silver/gold, steel, gun powder, medicines, and food/water.
Agreed, if enter that Madmax type of collapse.
As a side note, government confiscation of metals is something that shady coin dealers try to threaten metal newbies with to get them to buy higher premium lower metal content collectible stuff that they make higher margins on. Its not going to happen, enforcement would be wayyyyy too difficult, and it would be incredibly dangerous to try and enforce. Even when gold was "confiscated" in the 1933 it was to essentially invalidate gold certificates. It didn't really stop too many people from holding gold, otherwise you wouldn't see any pre 1933 gold coins in circulation.
They won't need to confiscate it. You will willingly throw it into the street. Mark my word.
Possession of precious metals in large quantities for anything other than token amounts of ornamental or collectors use, will have you labeled as a money launderer, a miser 1% rich who steals from 99% of society, and a bad person who doesn't benefit society. The society-at-large (even your own children) will despise you. The government will make sensationalized case examples.
You will have no way to trade it at a profit. And you will risk incriminating yourself.
The institutional support (vaults, dealers, etc) will also disappear and those that remain become so highly regulated.
It simply won't be worth it.
At least with crypto-currency, you will be able to trade it without the locals physically close to you knowing that you did.
