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".
Thanks 👍
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