I would argue that gold will *never* lose its intrinsic value.
Why? Well firstly consider that we DO need currency. It is totally impractical to go around bartering and trading for all transactions. I can't walk into a convenience store and trade a sack of potatoes for a chocolate bar, nor do I want to. Would my employer pay me with a pile of grain? How do I keep long term savings if it's perishable goods? How would online payments work? The fact that we need currency is obvious. So given that we need currency, there will always be one or more currencies that can represent purchasing power in a durable, practical, trusted form.
Fiat currencies are only backed by the trust of the central bank who controls the money supply, and history shows that fiat currencies always collapse. It's always too tempting for central banks to print their way out of problems which destroys the currency. Whilst they are the most practical and convenient method of currency, they are a still B-grade form of money.
So then we are left with things like Gold, Silver, or Bitcoins which cannot be created by a central authority, and are durable enough to be a long term store of wealth. Bitcoins use a "proof of work" system to control the supply via difficult computations. Well, Gold has a superior proof of work - it is created during the explosion of a supernova. It's not going to be easy for someone to go out and explode a star to get more. Bitcoins could easily be replaced by a new bitcoin network or an alternative implementation, but Gold can only be replaced by another element (eg. Silver) and there are limited elements available and pretty much all of them are not suitable as currency for different reasons (gasses - no, liquids - no, flammable or reactive - no, radioactive - no) then you filter out the non-rare and super-rare ones and you're only left with a few choices (Gold, Silver, Rhodium, Palladium)
So gold will always keep its place - not necessarily as a day-to-day transaction currency, but it will always be the ultimate store of wealth because it stands the test of time as one of the few true currencies. Just look at history to see that gold has been the world's money since the beginning of human civilisation, and for a good reason!
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I would argue that gold will *never* lose its intrinsic value. Why? Well firstly consider that we DO need currency. It is totally impractical to go around bartering and trading for all transactions. I can't walk into a convenience store and trade a sack of potatoes for a chocolate bar, nor do I want to. Would my employer pay me with a pile of grain? How do I keep long term savings if it's perishable goods? How would online payments work? The fact that we need currency is obvious. So given that we need currency, there will always be one or more currencies that can represent purchasing power in a durable, practical, trusted form. Fiat currencies are only backed by the trust of the central bank who controls the money supply, and history shows that fiat currencies always collapse. It's always too tempting for central banks to print their way out of problems which destroys the currency. Whilst they are the most practical and convenient method of currency, they are a still B-grade form of money. So then we are left with things like Gold, Silver, or Bitcoins which cannot be created by a central authority, and are durable enough to be a long term store of wealth. Bitcoins use a "proof of work" system to control the supply via difficult computations. Well, Gold has a superior proof of work - it is created during the explosion of a supernova. It's not going to be easy for someone to go out and explode a star to get more. Bitcoins could easily be replaced by a new bitcoin network or an alternative implementation, but Gold can only be replaced by another element (eg. Silver) and there are limited elements available and pretty much all of them are not suitable as currency for different reasons (gasses - no, liquids - no, flammable or reactive - no, radioactive - no) then you filter out the non-rare and super-rare ones and you're only left with a few choices (Gold, Silver, Rhodium, Palladium) So gold will always keep its place - not necessarily as a day-to-day transaction currency, but it will always be the ultimate store of wealth because it stands the test of time as one of the few true currencies. Just look at history to see that gold has been the world's money since the beginning of human civilisation, and for a good reason!