I'm actually way closer to a goldbug than a cryptocurrency advocate, and generally agree with you with what you said!
But I have definitely encountered goldbugs who just know that gold has intrinsic value, if you ask them what that is, it's just like, intrinsic dude, if you ask them what that even means they just sort of get a blank look on their face (metaphorically, since this is the internet).
Gold is super good at storing what value it has... but it is not intrinsically valuable. If society were to collapse to two people, and one had gold and the other had cows, the one with cows would have little reason to trade for the gold. This is not likely to happen, but is a good mathematical sort of way of considering the question. Food and water have much better "intrinsic" value if you really get down to it... where they go wrong as the basis for an economy is all the other attributes we want money to have.
(Personally as one "way closer to a goldbug", I favor things that are actually used. Gold freaks me out a bit because the world still treats it as very valuable even now, but it isn't actually used for much. I feel much better about things that are used because they are the best solution to some problem; see platinum and palladium for catalytic converters, for instance. On the flip side, the reason why gold isn't used much is precisely that it's considered very valuable; if the value did suddenly collapse because the general agreement about its value deteriorated, there are a lot more things we'd use it industrially for, so that might be enough to keep it valuable.)
But I have definitely encountered goldbugs who just know that gold has intrinsic value, if you ask them what that is, it's just like, intrinsic dude, if you ask them what that even means they just sort of get a blank look on their face (metaphorically, since this is the internet).
Gold is super good at storing what value it has... but it is not intrinsically valuable. If society were to collapse to two people, and one had gold and the other had cows, the one with cows would have little reason to trade for the gold. This is not likely to happen, but is a good mathematical sort of way of considering the question. Food and water have much better "intrinsic" value if you really get down to it... where they go wrong as the basis for an economy is all the other attributes we want money to have.
(Personally as one "way closer to a goldbug", I favor things that are actually used. Gold freaks me out a bit because the world still treats it as very valuable even now, but it isn't actually used for much. I feel much better about things that are used because they are the best solution to some problem; see platinum and palladium for catalytic converters, for instance. On the flip side, the reason why gold isn't used much is precisely that it's considered very valuable; if the value did suddenly collapse because the general agreement about its value deteriorated, there are a lot more things we'd use it industrially for, so that might be enough to keep it valuable.)