>"[for gold] there's a fundamental underlying value"
The fundamental value for it's technical applications is probably < 1/10 of it's real value.
If people wake up tomorrow and stop using it as reserves/ investment /savings, you would loose virtually all your money, down to a few percent. So yeah, that 5% or whatever of value is secure, but how nuch does that help?
Timber is obviously not a usefull store of value because it does not last, it is not fungiable, is expensive to store - imagine 100 million dollars worth of timber, and you would store that.
I think this took a wrong turn. I don't aim to defend gold a store of value. It's not clear what its value would be if people stopped using it as a financial instrument, and I always advise people not to buy gold.
My point was that tangible commodities do have at least some intrinsic value, as opposed to digital commodities like cryptocurrencies.
The fundamental value for it's technical applications is probably < 1/10 of it's real value.
If people wake up tomorrow and stop using it as reserves/ investment /savings, you would loose virtually all your money, down to a few percent. So yeah, that 5% or whatever of value is secure, but how nuch does that help?
Timber is obviously not a usefull store of value because it does not last, it is not fungiable, is expensive to store - imagine 100 million dollars worth of timber, and you would store that.