Counterpoint to gold-backed currency from Arthur Hayes

The best forms of money have no industrial use case. Fiat currencies are very useful for commerce because they are intrinsically worthless. The demand to use a particular fiat is completely tied to the usefulness of its network. The network in this case is the number of domestic and or international trading counterparties that will accept a particular fiat currency in exchange for goods and/or labour.

The reason why commodity forms of money are not great for everyday use is that they have a value tied to some real-world use case. A barrel of oil is a terrible currency. 

Arthur Hayes Crypto Trader Digest May 13, 2021