> The USB in question would need military grade security
Which is widely available and effectively free.
> BTC is a fiat currency whose scarcity is determined by the actions of some random computer programmers who, for now, aren't leveraging that power for their own personal benefit
Statements like this are a sure sign of not actually understanding how Bitcoin works. There is no person or cartel in the world who could successfully unilaterally change the Bitcoin consensus rules.
> Gold is a natural element whose scarcity is a function of the laws of nature
The amount of gold we’ve mined compared to the amount of gold in nature (on earth, in asteroids, etc) is infinitesimal. The amount of Bitcoin we’ve mined is 89.5%.
What? Who is going to fight off people trying to obtain or destroy that USB drive to increase the value of their own holdings (i.e. speed up deflation by reducing available bitcoin), or extract the passcode from its owner, for free?
EDIT: I realize this is the plot of Goldfinger, but the author did invoke Fort Knox, and the strategy of destroying stores of value to increase the worth of your own stash makes sense.
Sure, but anyone holding that much wealth could expect some kind of "advanced persistent threat" working against them to either destroy all of the backups, or transfer the coins to /dev/null after extracting any passcode from the owner. The keys and anyone that knew how to use them would need a high level of physical security. The "costly militarized facilities" would still be necessary, contrary to the author's statement.
Which is widely available and effectively free.
> BTC is a fiat currency whose scarcity is determined by the actions of some random computer programmers who, for now, aren't leveraging that power for their own personal benefit
Statements like this are a sure sign of not actually understanding how Bitcoin works. There is no person or cartel in the world who could successfully unilaterally change the Bitcoin consensus rules.
> Gold is a natural element whose scarcity is a function of the laws of nature
The amount of gold we’ve mined compared to the amount of gold in nature (on earth, in asteroids, etc) is infinitesimal. The amount of Bitcoin we’ve mined is 89.5%.