Jim Grant on gold vs. cryptocurrencies

I feel as if cryptocurrencies have stolen a bit of the thunder of our favorite alternative monetary asset. But the gold market will respond to the demonstrated failure of radical monetary policy. I have no idea when that collective perception might come that the central bankers are not fully clothed. But it will come, and a good portion of the world will come to the conclusion that gold represents a very good store of value outside the banking system and outside the electrical grid and outside the world of technology. These cryptocurrencies, on the other hand, propagate like rabbits: One day there are 900 cryptocurrencies, the next week there are 1200 and the week after that 1500. On the contrary, gold has been with us for millennia and the only way to get more is by a collision of two neutron stars or something like that. So alchemy may work in the cryptocurrencies but it’s not going to work in gold.

~ Jim Grant, "James Grant: Markets Trust Too Much in the Presence of  Central Banks," December 11, 2017, Finanz und Wirtschaft