Gold has many important industrial uses outside of jewelry. It doesn't tarnish or corrode, and the best thing for dental fillings, etc. It was the heat shield on the lunar lander, etc.

That being said, it's not usually a very good investment. It only become valuable when the price changes, where a mutual fund or spider will generally give significantly better returns.

And for the record, silver historically has been more expensive than gold.

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.

Not sure i get what you mean.  The only kind of real estate that would hold that kind of value would be farmland.

Which would be a TOTAL pain in the ass  to own for almsot anyone not a farmer and be a hell of a lot more work for the average consumer or investor.

The key about gold though is that while the era of the gold standard is idealized in terms of how countries conducted their monetary policy (the phrase back then was "Rules of the game" that countries had to follow), stronger countries, like Great Britain for instance, were always breaking the rules, forcing themselves into stronger positions and other countries into weaker positions, so it's not like the system is foolproof for abuse.

And i really hadn't followed bitcoins, aside from SamuelRSmith mentioning them in passing in his "Pillars of the State" thread. What went on there?

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.  

Land possessing natural resources that can be acquired, is also of value.  Land with equipment for manufacturing is also very important.  Land without resources and not developed, really isn't at all.  Land gets its value from the commerce associated with it, as do about anything.  If this said commerce ends up adding value to the economy and provides additional goods and services to people, then that land is of value (just like a person).  If the said item doesn't do this, and merely is exchanged, it is currency.  Yes, it serves a certain function, to address the issues raised with barter, but really doesn't add anything to the economy, which is why more currency with less goods ends up producing inflation.

And gold is a pain to store also.  it can get stolen and whatnot.  And above all that, it is subject to Ponzi, next sucker schemes where the entire market turns into buyers hoping to find other buyers to unload goods on.

Again, the problem with currency is this: The perfect currency is something everybody wants, but has no (or easily replaced) intrinsic value.  

Basically they shot up in "value" by a gigantic amount in recent weeks.  Which is interesting because Bitcoins as a currency have less backing then coupons printed up by a Hobo. (God bless the King of America)

As far as anyone can tell they shot up in value because

A) People are willing to buy them/accept them for stuff.

B) They get made in a specific not expected to change way.

So... people are rushing to a "fake" currency more or less simply because they don't expect it to inflate.

Will see if bitcoin faces inflation or not.  If it actually does, then either the infrastructure that runs bitcoin is broken, or that the arguments for what causes inflation are wrong, particularly among those who argue for gold standard.

Really depends how you want to classify inflation.  It's value does have to crash eventually... and as far as i know, the more interested people are in bitcoins the more will be made even if it is formulatic... (I think.... not really sure how bitcoin mining works.)

Though i think you have it backwords.

The people who argue for the Gold standard absolutely HATE Bitcoins and other digital currencies because of the lack of backing and in general expectation of inflation always bringing down the value of the currency.  (Since more bitcoins are created afterall.)

It's like if you had an RPG economy in the real world... all the prices for magic potions and swords would increase, because everytime you kill something a goblin creates more gold.

Online RPGs more or less try and mitigate this via shopkeepers being a good way to "Destroy" currency... however the durable goods they provide in exchange still keep defacto currency in the system... eventually causing shop items to become really cheap to sell second hand.

It's the same with loot items.  If your in a game with rare loot, the best thing to do is to day 1 grind out all you can to get the best loot... then IMMEDIATLY sell it for money if you can... or more "durable" items if you can't.

The only items that keep there value... and actually become more expensive as the game goes on are limited promo items which will never come again. (Specifically ones that are particularly rare.)

Well that or money only items.   In TF2 for example... Metal was originally used as a currency but due to inflation was rejected ultimatly for keys.  Which had to be bought with real cash.

The only items worth a bunch of money are rare promo items like bills hats and Earbuds (worth more now then they have ever been in keys)...  and unusuals which technicaly should lose value via inflation since there are ever more added... but they're really rare.

Gold is fine, it's just like oil. The price just varies all over the place and is quite rare