Ah, that's true. Well, we are entering a deflationary age, demographically and technologically, so Bitcoin will suffer a bit, with all other assets.
On the other hand, Bitcoin supply will eventually begin shrinking. That never happened, with gold. The supply steadily rose, until the reinflating dollar caught back up with it.
The Bitcoin supply started shrinking from the first halving on Nov. 28, 2012, when the Coinbase went from 50 to 25 BTC.
The gold supply has been shrinking in a much more unpredictable way as the search by mining companies for new seams has become harder and harder.
Same for coal, oil and gas.
Finding natural resources is easy to start with, then becomes harder as more is found. Search technology can elongate the tail, but only to a degree.
An interesting thing I learned, ironically from watching a documentary in my suite onboard my latest cruise, was the artificial diamond manufacture now matches the quality of natural diamonds. It is possible to distinguish uncut lab grown diamonds from natural ones, but once they are cut, this becomes impossible.
Apparently there is a crises in the diamond industry right now, where lab diamonds are being inserted into the supply chain, issued with authentication certificates (which are real certificates) and sold into the market as natural diamonds. If you've bought a natural diamond in the last 10 years or so, it is very possible this is a manufactured diamond.
Well, of they are indistinguishible, then they're the same thing. 🤷🏻♀️
Exactly.
And no longer a scarce resource, so of little value.
Diamonds are now a shitcoin 😂
I bet the lab ones are expensive, too, tho. Use lots of energy, to create. 🤔 If the price of energy goes back up, natural ones may become cheaper than lab ones.
Same deal as lab-grown meat.
You can inflate supply with fake stuff, but it's only sustainable, so long as it's cheaper to produce, than the real stuff.
Actually no, as with most technologies, the process is refined and improved constantly. Calling them lab grown is a throw back to the early days. They are manufactured en-mass.
We have been able to buy mass produce industrial diamonds for decades for things like drill bits and cutting tools, but as the manufacturing process has improved, so the industrial diamonds have become much closer to natural diamonds to the extent that "cut" manufactured diamonds are indistinguishable from natural diamonds.
We got too good at making diamond cutting tools 😂
