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Originally Posted by augie_
yes, thanks!
you're being a little disingenuous here. ok, i'm willing to accept there's a crapload of gold deep in the ocean and deep in the earth where we can't get to it.
so what? it's rare for now, considering how much has been mined.
That's better. Although I still don't agree with the way you put it. Technology can (and will) have a major impact on the supply and therefore value of gold. this why Szabo did a three part series on mining deep oceans and comets:
http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/200...ty-deep-i.html
It is also why Satoshi explained "The price of any commodity tends towards its cost of production"
Historically, recently, this isn't true in regard to gold, because it served also as an inflation hedge. When our currencies are unstable and are devalued, golds price skyrockets. But Satoshi alluded to a time when gold was not to be relevant in this way. So does Szabo.
The relevant point about gold's supply can be found here:
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It is a coincidental fact that the inherent nature of mining and mining technology makes it possible for the prices of certain commodities that are produced as a result of the devotion of labor and capital to the effort of mining to increase less (or decrease more) than might be expected. There is a “dimension paradox”: Agricultural products are produced by using the two-dimensional resource of the earth surface, so the “disappearing frontier” creates a limitation. In contrast, some mining, particularly for elemental metals, can essentially be done in three dimensions, although, of course, there are increasing costs for deep digging. So, really there is lots and lots of gold, silver, platinum, tungtsten, and so forth out there and more can be found by digging deeper.
It's supply is naturally throttled by the cost of digging it up. This in contrast to bitcoin. If a bunch of mining power all of a sudden jumps on the network, the difficult increases and thus the supply is not affected.
The mechanism is different but the result is the same, the supply is predictable.
Gold and bitcoin are identical in
for the reason we value gold as an inflation hedge: the supply is predictable. And bitcoin is far more predictable for reasons stated and linked to above.
You have never been exposed to the proper argument augie.