I like your thought provoking analogy.

But why would a modern apocalypse look identical to the 1600's? I think some tidbits of technologies we've gained since then would be scrapped together by industrious survivors.

What was used for "currency" in prior dark ages before the 1600's? I'm guessing it didn't pan out well for the guy who stockpiled cowrie shells in between.

That's why I chose the 1600s, alluding to a particular time period in history where gold happened to be the world standard. The Roman denarius was made out of silver; in the early middle ages most transactions were done using denarii that remained in circulation. The original English pound stirling was also silver (and weighed a pound, hence the name). Later in the middle ages the Byzantine gold solidus would become a major currency. In 1284 Venice issued the gold ducat and Britain simultaneously introduced the gold florin, which would usher in the gold standard that lasted until 1933 (though much everyday money in both the U.S. and Britain continued to be silver). The 1600s were sort of the heydey of gold as a currency, as large amounts coming from the conquest of the Americas began to circulate in Europe.

Elsewhere in the thread a lot of people say that gold has real tangible value. Sort of. It's tangible in that you can hold it in your hand and have physical possession of it. But "value" is always in the eye of the beholder - currencies are valuable if other people think they are valuable. With today's world, there's no guarantee that'd be gold - it could be silver, or cowrie shells, or bullets, or cigarettes, or Juul pods, or USB sticks, or n95 masks.

Bingo.

Populations tend to the hardest money. Bitcoin cannot be undiscovered.

Actually I think populations tend to use the softest money that they have any confidence will be worth something tomorrow - that's Gresham's Law, "Bad money drives out good". And that's sorta happening with Bitcoin as well. It's use as a currency is declining, and people hoard it for price appreciation.

But you're right that Bitcoin cannot be undiscovered. It wouldn't surprise me if the dominant currency would be some other cryptocurrency with built-in inflation (maybe ETH, maybe XLM) that remained outside of the ability of some single entity to cause runaway inflation.

Bullets might fare better than gold in the latter scenario