In the god-eat-dog realm of imperialist capitalism, redundancy is seen as weak and pointless; needing to be purged and eliminated. After all, if one is running a business one must maximize profits by eliminating waste and trimming the fat. Sleek EFFICIENT systems must be created in order to compete.
In fact, laying off people in Britain is literally called "redundancies". I learned this from the original season of The Office (British version with Ricky Gervais as the boss).
This is the exact reason why our supply-chains were wrecked so hard when COVID hit. The economy is all about scaling up just enough to meet demand. If demand goes up because everyone is freaking out, they can't just turn on more factories to make more products; those factories don't exist.
If they did exist who would pay for them? How would that entity be able to compete in a market while wasting the overhead cost of empty emergency factories? To top it off when factories close and supply goes down (again due to COVID) this makes the problem even worse for a short time.
Crypto is the opposite of this idea.
Humanity is failing to scale. We're already tried the efficiency thing, and it only goes so far. What ends up happening is that we build a pyramid, and then that pyramid becomes inverted as everyone at the top scoops everything, and then the system collapses in on itself.
We are finally exiting this era of unsustainability and infinite cancerous growth, using crypto. Crypto is all about redundancy and robust systems that have very few attack vectors and many failsafes. The inefficiency of crypto is not a bug, but a feature. We are sacrificing efficiency to create a stable base of trust. The pyramid we are building is one of reputation and honor. Those who ascend to the top will be champions of the people. However, this is off-topic. Maybe another time...
Gold 2.0
We've all heard the analogy, Bitcoin is Gold 2.0, and because we live in a world of imperialist efficiency, competition, and domination, we assume that of course Gold 2.0 will eat the lunch of gold and the market cap of gold will fall greatly, nothing could be farther from the truth.
Again, this idea that Gold will no longer be used as a store of value comes from the engrained idea of cutthroat competition. Let me be very clear: the only lunch Bitcoin is coming to eat is those of the central bankers. Bitcoin can only add value to gold in the long term.
Bold claim
It is a bold claim isn't it? Saying the opposite of pretty much everyone else. How many people have you seen making this claim? That Gold value will increase because of Bitcoin? It is inevitable.
But Gold will cease to be a good Investment!
This is true! Gold will cease to be a good investment when crypto goes mainstream. That's because it's not meant to be an investment. It's role in the future will be rooted in creating a robust redundant system that has very few attack vectors. Sound familiar?
Yes, I am right.
Again, the days of the inverted pyramid and a debt-based economy are coming to an end. Where does that leave gold and silver? In very good positioning.
Just look at what happened with Gamestop stock. Reddit pumped it just because of Millennial nostalgia combined with a hate for institutional manipulations that crush businesses that are down on their luck.
Do we really think that if a bunch of anti-establishment libertarians become crypto-rich that they are going to stop buying gold and silver? That's ridiculous, we are obviously going to buy more gold and silver once we are living in abundance and are wondering what we should spend our money on. Thirsty crypto users suffering a 3-year bear market can't see this future. It is such a fleeting dream at the moment.
So a crypto city-state pops up and you move there. There is no KYC. There is no AML. All reputations are calculated from digital identities that can be created on demand.
What happens if the Internet goes down? What happens if we are attacked from the outside and need REDUNDANT SYSTEMS to stay afloat? Redundant systems is what development, networking, crypto, and the future is all about. We've gotten to the point where being efficient and sacrificing robustness has reached its limit. This is the way.
So no, gold and silver won't be good "investments", but they will be amazing robust backups. Also they are good status symbols and marketing ploys. Imagine Hive goes x1000 and someone starts minting gold and silver coins with the Hive logo and whatever else... that's pretty damn good marketing. People respect wealth. Money is the God of many, unfortunately.
So when should I "invest" in gold and silver?
Again, not an investment. It's a robust backup. Therefore you would never "invest" in a backup until you actually had enough wealth stacked up in order to justify the hedge in the first place. I wouldn't advice acquiring gold or silver until one had millions of dollars worth of crypto. On a side note, I wish I could stop measuring value in dollars. Old habits die hard.
Digital gold and silver are going to be obliterated.
In the future there will be absolutely zero reason to hold digital versions of gold and silver. That's what crypto is for. Crypto absolutely will eat the lunch of every precious metals derivative in existence.
That means that there actually is a huge chance that within the next ten years as crypto becomes mainstream, that the entire precious metals market crashes into the dirt. This would be an epic chance to buy PHYSICAL precious metals.
Market sentiment is very clear:
For a short time, perception can be reality until reality catches up to the delusional. Gold and silver will likely crash when crypto goes mainstream simply because people think that's what's supposed to happen. When the time comes, I'll be ready to buy buy buy.
It is just so disgustingly obvious to me how this is going to go down. Look at what happened with Gamestop. Look at how badly the PM market has been manipulated over the generations. Institutions have been shorting the market with "shares" (aka product that doesn't exist) using their classic manipulations. What happens when those manipulations no longer have teeth?
When we see crypto whales dropping a million dollars on a worthless cryptokitty, why would we assume that no one is going to buy gold or silver? That's just ridiculous speculation based on competition and this silly Gold 2.0 idea. Bitcoin does not compete.
It gives abundance, and abundance helps everyone except for the exploitative institutions who thrive on artificial scarcity and financially enslaving the population with their manipulations. That variable doesn't apply to gold and silver in the least bit. It applies to the people who manipulate gold and silver and push the price down by borrowing assets that don't physically exist.
Conclusion
So should we "invest" in gold or silver? Of course not. Bitcoin is doubling in value every year. It is a unicorn asset and the ultimate investment. There is literally no reason to invest in anything else blindly unless we are trying to support a community we are actively committed to.
However, should we use gold or silver as a hedge once we are crypto-rich? Absolutely. The entire point of crypto is to create a robust and redundant economy. It's no longer about efficiency at all costs. That means we must hold PHYSICAL gold and silver in the event of a digital meltdown.
Institutions have been shorting silver and gold for generations now. They've been doing it with funny-money assets that don't actually exist using Futures manipulations. Once crypto users demand to hold PHYSICAL gold and silver these manipulations and shorts will be laid bare, and the short squeeze will be epic... just like it was with Gamestop.