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>I am so lost in all of this.

At the root of it all its very simple.

Money has always been an abstraction from tangible goods, an has always been nothing more than a social contract.

What is unique about "cryptocurrencies" is that they are created by people and not governments created purely from a shared electronic ledger known as a blockchain.

However, as with any money, it is only as good as the trust given by society who uses it, and as a software developer my self, I can foresee a total collapse once an inevitable flaw is found in the software used to guarantee the integrity of a "blockchain".

What is unique about "cryptocurrencies" is that they are created by people and not governments created purely from a shared electronic ledger known as a blockchain.

However, as with any money, it is only as good as the trust given by society who uses it, and as a software developer my self, I can foresee a total collapse once an inevitable flaw is found in the software used to guarantee the integrity of a "blockchain".

A big issue I see with them is the volatility. How can you price goods to a currency that has increased in "value" all over the place? BTC is currently "worth" $49407. A month ago, $63M. Six months, $16M. A year ago, $9400. Four years, $1800. Six years, $240. Just this year, it's been a nonstop roller coaster between $40M and $60M. 30-50% gains/losses every other week. And the only way it's even this constant is because its worth is pegged to the dollar, which gives it a relative value. Imagine what it would be doing if there was no dollar equivalent people could convert it to?

There's no way companies with thousands or millions of products on the shelf can update all those prices every month. Or weekly. Or daily. Or really, hourly/minutely since that's the only way to not lose a fortune from having the wrong prices on stuff.

No, paper money is the abstraction.

Gold and silver are the tradeable hard currencies. Contrary to the notion of the modern gullibles, both have intrinsic value and always have.

The world problem is that there is not enough gold and silver at hand to carry out trade locally or nationally or internationally.

It should be noted that to settle trade between nations, gold is transferred from one country’s vault of the NY Federal Reserve to the vault of another country. similarly, transactions occur at other locations, Switzerland for instance

A tangible paper substitute for physical gold is gold miner stock. That is the paper is backed by gold still in the ground.

The US$ is already electronic currency. the US$ is nothing more than electrons captured on millions and millions of electronic ledgers at businesses, banks and guess what.....I Phones.

And now for something completely different.....

During the recent hurricane that destroyed the New Jersy shore and parts of Staten Island, the water level rose considerably. There was fear and a near miss when the water did not rise high enough to flood those gold vaults. The Manhattan vaults are vulnerable to high water