Ah. No that's not what I meant. Option #1 is risk the money. Option #2 is sit on cash. You forgot about option #3: invest it somewhere that is both not risky and safe from inflation. Institutional investors have hedging strategies that achieve this. For us little people, there used to be crappy govt bonds that would safely give you the inflation rate more or less. Now they give you negative returns while inflation climbs. And of course the traditional hedges like real estate and precious metals are sky-high and dominated by speculators.

The buying power of your cash is surely decaying over time.

Yes, as would anything else. That's the point.

Well, real estate, gold, and bitcoin don't.

govt bonds aren't generally expected to decay over time either. But I suppose they are these days.