Thread by @TheStalwart

This is what I don't get about goldbugs and people who think that the value of currency should never erode over time.

Why does society owe you the preservation of your purchasing power?

Why should you get to time-travel your wealth without taking any risks?

Like, think about the implications of this chart. That someone in 1913 should expect to have the same level of purchasing 100 years later while literally taking zero risks. Why is that something anyone owes you?

https://twitter.com/Dominator0081/status/1062109048005259264

What's funny is Bitcoin and Gold people actually do recognize that savings has costs. For one thing, there's volatility. But there's also storage costs, and the risks of losing one's private key, which is a de facto form of wealth degradation. They just don't connect the dots.

There's no free lunch. You must pay a fee for every form of wealth preservation.

Gold: Volatility/Security/vault costs
Pure cash: Inflation
Banks: counterparty risk
Bitcoin: Volatility/private key risk
Land: Security/environmental risks
Stocks: Corporate/economic/volatility risk

There's a lot of muddle thinking around the concept of a "store of value" and people need to be very clear about what value is being stored with each.

EG, farmland may be a good SoV if your physical safety in the event of a war.

Gold may be a SoV during a monetary collapse.

Bitcoin may be a good SoV during a period of political repression, when governments limit who can transact through the banking system.

But if you don't think about *what* is being preserved, and what costs you have to pay to preserve that, you're really just going to end up reverting to jargon and ideological bias.