this could make for a fascinating experiment in the debate over where gold's value is derived from. there is a popular theory that gold's value storage properties actually stem from its "intrinsic" or real world non-monetary utility---this is what "backs" gold's usage as a form of money.
I'm not considering it a theory but rather quite a fact.
Gold does a lot of things better than other metals, when it is surpassed by one or a different alloy it is often a case of price rather than that being far much better at everything. Of course, there are exceptions but normally it's the price that dictates everything, like in the semiconductor industry which ironically replaced gold exactly with the copper that is the base material for this new "fake" gold.
so, if this "fake gold" can really fulfill all the industrial/medical uses of gold much more cheaply, that would throw that whole thesis into question.
That's the point, can you make a "fake" gold that has the same properties cheaper than the real gold or at least with a real discount and at the same time not too costly to have to compete with different alloys? And more important, can you guarantee enough supply for manufacturers to be willing to support the costs of switching to this new solution?
But, this is old news and nothing has changed and besides the "fake" gold has some of the properties of gold, not exactly, although it is resistant to oxidation it doesn't really match gold, and you can see that in two years no progress or new experiments have been made as it's merely a discovery without real-world applications.
