RE: Gold – A Commodity, Currency, or Pet Rock? by Roy Sebag
Welcome to the blockchain!
I own some gold (and silver) like I own insurance. If I had a Katrina event, I think I’d be able to use them as money when systems that rely on electricity are unavailable.
That said, as practical daily money, gold isn’t as useful to me. I do most of my shopping online. The paper gold problem of having to trust a third part custodian is huge. Putting it on the blockchain may help some, but I think it’s an unsolvable problem to take a physical thing and exactly and uniquely represent it in code. As you mentioned, it’s easy to reshape gold and thus easy to replicate any stamp (such as a blockchain private key). There’s also the tungsten gold bar concern where as a bitcoin private key is unique and can be used to cryptographically sign messages and prove ownership.
Gold, I think, will always have an important place in the world, but the world also needs a form of money that is secure, programmable, and without third-party risk. Gold can’t do those things so I prefer cryptocurrency over gold.
The argument that cryptocurrencies can just be copied is concerning at first, but I see it as a feature. Having worked in software since 1996, I recognize how valuable open source is and the competition to serve the needs of real users. Competing currencies keep everyone honest. The network effect is a big part of what gives money value and various cryptocurrency projects will work hard to maintain it to avoid a fork. Forks that do happen often don’t amount to much of anything beyond speculations. Where they may provide value is to indicate stored user demand for a feature which the main chain can readily adopt (hurray open source!) making the fork irrelevant.
Again, I wouldn’t call gold archaic, I just think it’s role in daily society will be much smaller than the role cryptocurrency will play.
Thanks for coming to Steemit. I look forward to reading more of your content.
Wow! Thanks for weighing in @lukestokes! You are a huge influence on Steemit and I appreciate you commenting here. Are you familiar with Goldmoney? Goldmoney allows payments, savings, transaction, earnings with gold. Thank you for your thoughts here
Does goldmoney eliminate third party custodial risk? If so, how? If not, I still personnaly prefer the cryptographically secure, trustless systems of cryptocurrency.
I am a proponent of owning both gold and cryptocurrency! The gold you own through goldmoney is redeemable if you prefer to take physical possesion. Some people don’t want to own all of their physical gold at home. In addition, being able to transact with gold is a huge advantage, especially within the goldmoney rail. We can send each other gold as payment, similar to sending STEEM back and forth without fees. I think its prudent to have a diversified portfolio, which include some amount of transactable gold. The gold in the Goldmoney vaults is all insured and third party audited as well.
Thanks for the reply, but you didn't really answer my question. Insured and audited means there's a need to trust a third party. It's like rule number one in cryptocurrency: if you don't own the private key, you don't own the cryptocurrency. If you have to trust someone else with your gold, well... do you really own it?
I'm not trying to bash on what you've built as it seems like a way better system than fiat and many other gold schemes, but I still don't see it as a practical electronic money due to the third-party risk. From my perspective, might as well use cryptocurrency. For those who already own gold and want to transact with it, this may be a good option. Or, they can convert into cryptocurrency for the amounts they wish to treat as money instead of just a store of value.
Fair :)....... How about a scenario in where you want to own some gold, as insurance as you do, but it is too large of an amount to store at home? Let’s say you wanted to keep some of it at home as a store of value and as savings, but you didnt want to store all of it in one place. What is the most secure way available to accomplish this? I believe a private secured vault with armed guards and audits, where the gold is redemable is a good solution for this situation. In the meantime, you can transact with it as an added benefit. I really think we are on the same page here. I am not proposing to replace an entire payment system with gold... it is not an either or equation to me. Own crypto, own some gold at home, own some gold in a vault that has full transparency. Thank you for the engagement Luke!
Yeah, that sounds like the best model we have today and one that goldmoney would work well for. Personally, I'd prefer to keep more value in cryptocurrency as I think it has a much higher upside growth potential, but that's just me. :)
I understand! Gold and cryptocurrency are completely different classes in my view. Gold is not an investment or a speculation, but should be used as a store of savings imo. Gold should not be compared to crypto as they do completely different things . Crypto has tons of potential upside and also significant risk thus is a seperate profile. I would never buy gold speculating on its price, but to maintain my savings over long periods of time. I speculate on crypto all the time though! ..... I’ll hop off this post as this is Roy’s article but feel free to continue the discussion with me anytime . Thanks Luke