> When a very large scale economic or state collapse happens, the most important thing to have are a community of people around you who believe in each other.

But isn't that one of the hopes of cryptocurrency -- that it can survive a state collapse, because the relatively normal currency manipulation leading up to said collapse would be less (or not at all) viable? I feel like that was the spirit of OP's tongue in cheek remark and it's going over everyone's heads.

Also (this is pedantic) but many metals _do_ have intrinsic value (ex copper wiring or gold plated connections). It's slightly meaningful because (among other things, like its relative scarcity) has helped those metals be used as relatively stable currency in the past.

> But isn't that one of the hopes of cryptocurrency -- that it can survive a state collapse, because the relatively normal currency manipulation leading up to said collapse would be less (or not at all) viable?

I've always wondered about this argument. It seems to me that a state collapse would be accompanied by the collapse of things that make bitcoin possible: electrical grid, Internet, mobile networks, and so on.

That's definitely a good point and I think it would probably apply in some cases. From my standpoint I"m most interested in the leadup to a collapse where governments start manipulating currency to greater degrees, destabilizing the countries economy (to the eventual point of temporary collapse) further than it otherwise would. I'm not sufficiently well read on the subject to argue deeply about it, just always seemed like if cryptocurrencies were viable they could perhaps alleviate or improve those situations. Maybe modern Venezuela is a good example. I'm not well read enough on either topic to take a strong stance but if it holds water, it's always seemed like a very promising thing for humanity.

I remember when many alt coins collapsed in 2013/2014 one problem was that with miners dropping off, difficulty stayed. Many coins with longer difficulty adjustments couldn't get back to reasonable confirmation times.

So let's say BTC difficulty drops 10x (China cracks downs on farms or simply miners moving to a different more profitable coin, who knows)

Currently this would be ruinous, as difficulty adjustments are every 2 weeks, so that would be 140 days until things get back to normal.

sorry for this but you can eat gold.

Also, why does our currency need intrinsic value? It represents a debt owed and can be exchanged for things with intrinsic value. The reason dollars, yen, pounds, euros, silver, metal and gold have value is both a social and a legal contract. Cryptocurrencies may have some social contracts that give them value but they lack the legal contract. That's why I think they are doomed unless they open themselves to regulation.

You can use gold (and other rare minerals) in electronics and such though, which creates a demand, and a demand = value.

The demand for USD is cyclic in nature (IANAEconomist, I just made that term up), in that, I need money to buy food, my employer needs me to make them stuff, my employer's customers need my employer's product for their processes, etc.

While you can’t eat gold, it does have a variety of uses.