Do you think someone would trade a sandwich for an ounce of gold if they didn't know if/when the power is coming back on?
Cash, gold, silver, bitcoin all useless in this scenario.
Only things of value would be food, water, and guns.
Discussion
I think you’d for sure be able to find someone that would make that trade. Gold has been trusted for so long that people inherently trust it has value because they know other people trust it has value as well. If we don’t know when the power will come back on trade won’t cease to exist, it’ll just be reset to it’s default mode, barter and precious metals, gold being the most trusted
So if you had limited and dwindling amounts of food and water in your house (which is probably the case for 99%), and someone showed up with an ounce of gold...
You would trade them some of your food for gold?
I obviously can't speak for you but I sure as hell wouldn't.
You can't eat or drink gold.
Agreed, you’d need a basic level of survival comfortability before you’d be willing to accept gold for some of your surplus food or water supply. Food and water would definitely be the most valuable resource there’s no doubt about that. Other things would still be traded other than food and water. If I had a surplus of pots for boiling water to make it drinkable, I’d trade that for gold so I could then turn around and trade that for some other tool that will make it easier for me to get my own food and water