Re:Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index
by XorNot on Wednesday February 10, 2021 @09:23AM
(#26089475)
This is why there is no gold standard anymore. Like, this right here is the exact reason: because collectively it's apparent gold is not worth much to anyone in a pinch. So why bother trading with it as a proxy for your nation-state's goods and services output?
Interestingly, I went and looked up what the price of gold would actually be if it was solely used for industrial processes, and it's hard to actually figure out: it's speculated on a lot, but world gold demand in 2019 was 4355.7t. Of that, 48.5% was for the jewelery industry, and 7.48% for technology - the rest accounted for by investment. So industrially world demand for gold for productive or decorative uses is about 2439.2 tons (as of 2019), whereas mining production in that year was about 3,300 tons.
So about 45% of world gold demand is essentially from financial speculators. To figure out pricing you'd have to really get into the current mining economics for technological use...
Interestingly, I went and looked up what the price of gold would actually be if it was solely used for industrial processes, and it's hard to actually figure out: it's speculated on a lot, but world gold demand in 2019 was 4355.7t. Of that, 48.5% was for the jewelery industry, and 7.48% for technology - the rest accounted for by investment. So industrially world demand for gold for productive or decorative uses is about 2439.2 tons (as of 2019), whereas mining production in that year was about 3,300 tons.
So about 45% of world gold demand is essentially from financial speculators. To figure out pricing you'd have to really get into the current mining economics for technological use...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in... https://www.statista.com/statistics/264628/world-mine-produc... https://www.gold.org/about-gold/gold-supply