I see a lot of crypto shills lately try to claim metals are a "barbarous relic" and cryptocurrency is the future. These people do not seem to understand how the financial system is structured. So to address the subject from user Anonymint:
"So what the heck is Exter's (inverted) Pyramid (with gold at the bottom) useful for then?"
When the current debt bubble implodes (thus wiping out the monetary system itself in the process), it requires two separate things to happen afterwards:
People's current liabilities and assets sort of have to be transferred over into a new system in some form, otherwise that's a societal collapse event from that alone leading to a new dark ages
The system also has to be re-capitalized with new monetary units
People like Jeff Berwick erroneously hype "shemitah" debt forgiveness claiming it will be the cure for all monetary ills. That essentially means some guy who took out a $500k NINJA loan on a house and only paid $10,000 gets a free house. One man's debt is another man's asset in the current system, so it's not just the bank that gets screwed in this. That guy getting a free house might mean another guy might not get his retirement paid and so on and so forth.
There would be giant football stadiums, hospitals, malls, grocery stores, farms; the ownership of almost everything you see around you would suddenly be up in the air and nobody would have any valid title to who owns what, causing all supply chains and legal systems to break down entering into a new dark ages. Instead of letting the system collapse and allowing the world to go into a new dark ages because the debt bubble is out of control and can't be serviced, the banks simply have to pull an accounting trick. They just revalue an asset they all hold (gold and silver), which in effect is just reducing the ratio of debt to money supply, and the system goes on as usual and is now serviceable again.
They will wait to do this until right at the last minute like when the next 2008 event happens. If they did not do this, cryptocurrency would be absolutely worthless because you'd be in a new dark ages anyway. So as you can see, metals are the hedge against the debt bubble and the dark ages/societal implosion, while cryptocurrency is a hedge against neither. Yes, "this one weird trick" actually does prevent a new dark ages.
It is my belief that the west screwed up and from the velocity of gold leaving Ft Knox over the last few decades, it is now either entirely empty or almost empty. I believe the reason JP Morgan has acquired such a huge amount of silver over the last few years (while simultaneously rigging the market to prevent it from increasing as they buy such a large amount) is because they were acting as an agent of the US govt to recoup something to act as reserves. The US dollar is legally supposed to be 371 grains of silver, so there is no real issue with them substituting silver for gold as their re-capitalization scheme.
Both gold and silver will be revalued and remonetized in this scheme, but since many countries like India, Turkey, random arab states, etc, have huge amounts of gold, favoring a gigantic gold revaluation number would only hurt the west and make the west slaves of India for instance. So it makes sense on multiple levels to favor revaluing silver to a higher level percentage wise anyway. I believe you will see a minimum of $5k gold, maximum of $10k gold, and jaw dropping numbers for silver in this revaluation, probably returning to historical 15:1 GSR ($333-$666 silver).
(Image source: dc.wikia.com)