Comment by jfengel
8 hours ago
True, but only a minuscule fraction of it is used for that purpose. If that were the sole source of its value, it would be worth pennies per once.
8 hours ago
True, but only a minuscule fraction of it is used for that purpose. If that were the sole source of its value, it would be worth pennies per once.
https://pse-info.de/en/scale/price - gold doesn't stand out, there are a few similar ones (Rhodium/Palladium/Iridium/Platinum). I haven't checked, but we'd probably find the gold price sits in a boring-looking distribution of the prices of other elements. Probably an exponential or something that could be mistaken for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prices_of_chemical_elements if you prefer wikipedia.
If it wasn't radioactive, poisonous and pyrophoric people would probably all just leap into the Neptunium market.
That is obviously false on it's face.
If it were only worth pennies an ounce, numerous industries wouldn't be paying what they do for it. The fact that many industries value it at several thousand dollars an ounce is self-evident from their continued use of it.
This is interesting to think about: For gold I'd say the demand is coming from both industries and from people who want it as a store of value. If it was only used as an industrial chemical, then surely the price would drop because there would be less demand.
Some bitcoin advocates will talk about how useful it is as a currency, and I wonder how much bitcoin is actually used for purposes other then to hope you can sell it to someone else for more than you paid.
If the price dropped, it would be even more in demand and reach equilibrium. Gold has several unique mechanical properties, being the most corrosion resistant metal and one of the most electrically conductive, as well as being able to be flattened into extremely thin sheets and drawn into extremely fine wire.