NFCs, bitcoins, silver, gold, whatever. If the only way people can cash out is to get someone to buy what they're selling, there's always going to be an element of grift to it. It's just some are more grifty than others.
this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2025
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So much FUD and complete misinformation here. Gold, first and foremost, is a store of value and a hedge against inflation. It's a terrible investment. That said, if you bought 10k worth of gold 5 years ago, you would now have 20k. Which is obviously a higher return than most savings products or some actual investments.
It's a hell of a lot safer than BTC and if society does collapse, it will absolutely retain its value.
if society does collapse, it will absolutely retain its value
Why? It's not inherently valuable beyond a handful of industrial/electronic uses. If society collapses, people are going to be trading in food, water and medicine, not worthless shiny metal.
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Obligatory not an economist, only know some basics about investing (and quite lazy about it)
I always thought that gold is just a rather unique commodity that people can also have the option of holding physically (not that it's advised to do so). Professional investors invest in just about anything as long as there is a potential return on investment, like typical stocks and bonds, gold and silver, housing/land, art, literal truckloads of food... frankly gold isn't even remotely the weirdest or "scammiest" on this list
As for more regular people, I do have a suspicion a lot of con-artists and/or people with suspicious intents heavily promote gold investing though. Also some libertarian types have a weird... fantasy? of total societal collapse with them rising to the top post-collapse, which I do not quite understand. But I'd presume gold would be attractive to those types since gold has been used as a means of transaction for a long time in human history
Bad news for the Libertarians: silver was historically way more common for money than gold was, to the point that languages like Irish and French use the same word for money as for silver.
This is because there was (and is) way less gold than silver, so gold is way more valuable. As such, gold coins were only used to buy things like houses, horses, and suits of armour. Silver coins were much more practical; the linked article mentions that Ptolemaic Egypt had to export large quantities of grain to bring in enough silver to pay their army despite there being gold in Egypt.
But more than that, if there is a complete societal collapse, the metal you'll want is iron. Societal collapse doesn't mean things continue as they have been except there are no safety or food quality laws. It means everybody goes back to peasant agriculture using tools made of wood and iron (well, steel, which is iron with extra stuff in it). If money is used, it might well be something where no coins actually change hands; everybody just remembers how much they owe their neighbours, and how much their neighbours owe them. That, if course, assumes that in the event of complete societal collapse, we don't decide to give local communism a try.
I assume you’re talking about physical gold.
Yes, it’s generally a scam. Some middle man is going to take a cut of what it’s worth before you enter the market - and they’re almost always going to misrepresent it’s value, especially if it’s not in the form of a stamped bar. Then you basically have to store it and shlep it and secure it and keep it secret, which will further diminish profit. Then you have to sell it, presumably as part of your retirement plan…or leave it to somebody who’s going to lose even more of its value when they want to unload it inefficiently.
If you’re not wealthy in the first place it’s only worth investing in as a hobby…because you have to factor in the value of your time and subtract that from its value, as well.
As far as it being a hedge against the collapse of currency? Bad idea. Skills and land you can defend are going to be the only hedges against that. Even if it had value post collapse…it would just put a target on your head.
The amount of time it would take for a post collapse society to regain enough stability to return to metal being needed for a currency is likely longer then you would be alive to actually benefit from the investment.
Short term only direct barter and labor will be worth anything. You only need a currency when you have a non volatile society.
It's why the whole post apocalyptic gold value nonsense is nonsense. You NEED an economy to make currency have value. A post collapse society has no economy.
Yeap.
Like…depending on the nature of the collapse you might have a bunch of delusional former MAGA people in a region who all have a bunch of gold so they trade it with each other…but for the most part nobody would want it.
Buy Silver instead.
curious, why?
Silver has other values in addition to being a currency. Used medical equipments & in electronics.
Copper hoarding is good too.
All of that is true for gold as well though.
Not all of it. And silver is significantly cheaper. So the poor man can still protect his assets to some extent.
Gold is used for medical devices, electronics, currency, thats everything you mentioned. How is that not all of it?
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The thing about the value of gold in a society is that it is only valued within the society. If society collapses, there will be no group or entity that could value it. You'd need to wait until people start rebuilding. But then you'd need to be in a position to shape how currency is decided on and minted. Unless you've kept your load of gold secret, it'll be hard to convince people to adopt gold as a currency without starting on more even ground.
Compare gold to the other elements on the periodic table as a medium to store value and you'll see why it is used for this task.
It is non toxic, it can be easily held and transported, it is non reactive (it won't rust or combust), it is relatively rare, it is dense (a lot of gold fills a small space) and, well like others have said, it's shiny. It can be easily moulded and forgotten about for millennia and still be the same way it was last used (look at Viking hordes as an example) few other things can do this, maybe diamonds? But they can not be recombined again like gold
Ever since we found gold we have valued it. I don't understand the position of, "Oh, no one will value it!" We love the shit and it's a store of value. How much value is dependent.
You can't eat gold, and you can only trade gold for food if that person can trade the gold for something else. I'm not going to say there's no chance of gold being valuable in a societal collapse scenario, but I'd rather wager with resources than a pretty, shiny metal. I don't see how that's a position that can't be understood. Gold works as an intermediary exchange, but direct barter can always be counted on.
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Bitches love gold. Just sayin.
in the event of like complete societal collapse or hyperinflation, they could use it for purchasing.
They are going to learn that you can't eat gold. It has next to no purpose other than looking pretty, and that's not going to matter much anymore in one of these events. It's value is as speculative as any other.
The only things that will have value when society collapses are food, water, shelter, off-grid power, ammunition, and weapons.
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