Not entirely, it's used in integrated circuits. Electronics is one of the places it's actually a functional good.
It's used in trace amounts, not enough to make much of a difference in terms of volumes traded on markets.
That's moving the goalposts. "entirely useless" and "not enough to make much of a difference in terms of volumes traded on markets" are very different claims.
The use in electronics is so small that it's functionally irrelevant to its speculative market price and role in a large-scale economy, making it essentially 'useless' in that context (industrial uses are not moving the price of gold now or even in the future w/ millions of robots in the pipeline)¹. No electronics supplier is going to come to you b/c they ran out of gold dust for the trace amounts they need in their circuits, now or in the future. And if it does somehow become a problem then they will figure out how to recycle it from the old circuit boards (they do this now as well I think but it's still not enough to move the price either way in the speculative markets).
¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold?useskin=vector - The consumption of gold produced in the world is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry.
I didn't see the article as implying a virtual and robotic economy is why people are hedging with gold.
Unless I misunderstood, they're saying gold investing is a hedge against societal collapse, and making the observation that as tech continues it's bull run, belief that we're headed for a cyberpunk dystopia is also increasing and thus the correlation.
Interestingly there was an article a few years ago showing how bitcoin (thought by some to be a similar hedge to gold) was trading just like a tech stock. While I don't buy it, this is one possible interpretation.
See https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/technology/bitcoin-price-...
If society collapses then the people w/ gold vouchers & certificates will have to figure out how to get their gold out of the vaults that are owned & operated by the people who sold them those vouchers & certificates. I don't buy the collapse narrative, I think it's fake & people are buying gold for the same reason they buy other kinds of speculative assets, they think they will be able to sell the vouchers for a higher price at a later date. Which might be true given how bad inflation is getting but that doesn't mean their dollars are going to have any better purchasing power at the newly inflated prices.
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I mean, I definitely have some money invested in gold to hedge against partial collapse. Certainly if all of society crumbles to the point contract law goes caput, it doesn't mean a damn thing.
In the case things "merely" get fairly shitty, but society continues to more or less function, then gold has historically shown good staying power in terms of it being a highly sought after good, despite lack of actual function in many cases.
Alright, good luck to you in whatever scenario you imagine you'll be buying bread w/ gold nuggets.
Tell that to all the robots with ailing joints because someone forgot to use gold plated connectors in the harness.
Good point, I better start stocking up on gold to make sure I am well-positioned for the future industrial use cases.