Does gold have some sort of magical properties to retain its value?

[richardhutnik]

Kasz216 said:

Mr Khan said:
It does make the whole concept of the gold standard seem rather silly, given that its only advantage over fiat currency is that a country has to tweak its balance of trade in order to mess with its currency values, rather than just ordering money printed or buying up a hell of a lot of assets to alter supply. But the underlying idea is still about arbitrarily assigning value to something.

Granted, gold is also a very useful metal, similar to Platinum or the Rare Earths.

Seems like an important advantage though if you've been following Bitcoins.  Which have skyrocketed in value when literally that's it's only advantage vs real currencies... and it has tons of disadvantages.

Bitcoin is an interesting argument for finiteness of a currency being the main element essential to it.  Otherwise, it is close to experimental and has rumors floating about it, like the person originating the Bitcoin idea owns like 25% of the currency.  Go figure.    Well, at least Bitcoins aren't produced with interest attached to them.  Currently there is presumptive levels of growth that are built into the not quite fiat currency we have today, because of the interest involved.  And I say "not quite" because it gets produced with interest, or at least had been, and it is close to zero percent now.  Heck, even some are now doing  negative interest rates, which will suck money out of the economy.