Monero cannot audit the total supply however. You don't need inflation built in. And actually gold is capped. There is only SO much gold under the earth so eventually the amount of gold mined will go to zero (ignoring asteroids etc.)
Discussion
For all practical purposes, gold is not supply capped (even ignoring extra terrestrial supply of gold). There is always more gold to be found or deeper to mine. It is just a matter of exploration, tech advances, and economic viability.
If bitcoin had a much much longer issuance schedule as a minute fraction of it's total supply, it would have a similar effect to gold.
Imagine if gold mining ended about a 100 years after it first started. That is bitcoin right now. But we are still mining gold after thousands of years.
this is incorrect - inside the sphere of the earth there is a limited supply of gold that is capped. It becomes more and more difficult to get at the remaining amounts just like the halving makes it more difficult to extract the remaining Bitcoin. Probably we will see the same decline in gold mining rates similar to Bitcoin
it doesn't matter what the timescale of the "end" of mining is. 140 years like Bitcoin or 5000 years, it's all the same. It becomes rarer with time until at some point you can't get any more and what was made is all there ever will be. And that's fine...
You seriously don't need "another" blockchain. If you don't cap the number of blockchains you just increase arbitrarily the number of tokens in existence. Hence only one of them will become THE token. Otherwise I will hope for Monero+ and then Monero++
Also Lightning doesn't work on Monero, so no instant payments as well as the non-auditability of token supply...
Lightning layer already being worked on scroll to bottom
I think you're underestimating how massive the earth is and how much gold it still has. If anything, our technological capabilities mean our absolute rate of mining gold increased over time unlike bitcoin. And we are STILL mining after thousands of years. Bitcoin's existence also depends on miners mining so it is even more important. Gold can still exist without people mining it.
But even if I concede that point for the sake of argument, there is a 'virtually' limitless supply outside of earth that we will keep mining practically forever.
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the novelty is hidden transaction amounts. You can't add up amounts if they are hidden...
Yes, it's just more complex math, search range proofs. You can prove inputs and outputs add up to zero.
The point was no one is adding up anything in bitcoin. You are not doing any math and verifying for yourself, youre trusting and having that node do the work just like in monero.