Gold is used for jewelry more than it used as a store of value. Even as a store of value, Gold has an advantage of cryptocurrency in that you can actually store it. Cryptocurrency presupposes the existence of the internet. If all the world reserve currencies collapse, there is a good chance that the internet would go down with it, and your cryptocurrency would be worthless.
> Gold has an advantage of cryptocurrency in that you can actually store it.
The vast majority of gold investors are not physically storing it on their own property. Most invest through funds, derivatives, ETFs, etc. If civilization collapses to the point the Internet can no longer support a peer-to-peer network moving 1 MB every 10 minutes, then it's almost certainly the case that you won't be able to sell your GLD stock at NASDAQ.
The point being that while some gold investment demand may be as an armageddon hedge, the behavior of most investors is not consistent with that being the central driving factor. Ergo gold has utility as a store of value for macro conditions that fall short of civilization and the Internet collapses.
> Cryptocurrency presupposes the existence of the internet.
Not really. You just need some way for nodes to communicate. That could happen over the Internet, or it could happen over mail, or it could happen over a team of ravens carrying transaction data on little scrolls (hell, given corvid intelligence, they might even be able to execute smart contracts in transit).
Theoretically, maybe you could do it over letters. Just like you could run a computing algorith with horsemen and flags in place of a CPU (like in the scifi novel, Three Body Problem).
Practically, you are talking nonsense and it's patently impossible. You cannot run any crypto currency with a system of letters even if you're transporting them with the full infrastrcture of the modern world with it's airmail and diesel vans.
Try and do it with letters delivered on foot. It is actually impossible.
