It is this property that makes gold the ideal money. If we were to time travel 1000 years into the future, leaving everything we owned behind, the smartest move we could make would be to sell everything before departure, buy gold, and hide it in a spot where no-one would find it.
Arriving 1000 years into the future, we could head out to the place where we hid the gold, dig it up, and start buying back all that we sold 1000 years earlier. If we sold a house, we could almost certainly buy a new house, roughly the same size. If we sold all our stocks and shares, we could buy roughly the same amount of stocks and shares in brand new companies.
Gold is simply magic. 1000 years of neglect does nothing to it. The same cannot be said about anything else. A house decays into a ruin within 100 years if not maintained. Dollars and other fiat currencies loose 98% to 99% of their purchasing power within the same time period. Bitcoin and other cryto-currencies require a constant supply of energy to maintain their value.
This magic is not lost on those who own gold. It is immediately understood by all that come in contact with it. It's at the root of humankind's fascination for it. Owning gold gives us piece of mind. While we grow older in our bodies, and all that we own decays, requiring maintenance and attention, gold shines mysteriously, no matter our neglect. It is as if the metal loves us, no matter what.
All of this has been known since antiquity. All sorts of cults have grown up with a deep love of gold. Not least the alchemists, who convinced people to drink their elixirs of life in order to retain their youthful complexion and body. Unfortunately for those who tried these elixirs, the elixirs contained all sorts of poisons in addition to gold. Far from being elixirs of life, they poisoned and killed.
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Alchemist guide to the elixir of life
By Donato d'Eremita - Science History Institute, Public Domain, Link
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