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Note that the same is for gold. Most people own gold ETFs, not physical gold, and most gold’s value is speculation (not industrial use).


Are there any asset classes in public markets that aren't driven primarily by speculation?


Sure, any kind of relatively short duration dividend/interest yielder, to give an example. Though it's possible to make extra money with t-bills by trading against rates, no one can say thats a primary driver. Likewise for much of the bond market.


Gold did at one point in history have an actual use case apart from speculation and being pretty: it is almost uniquely suitable as currency and store of value (along with silver) because it is hard to create, easy to purify and non-destructively measure the purity of, fungible, and can be easily split and recombined into units of any desired weight

as far as having an actual historic or present day use case, blockchain snake oil is still in search of a problem only it can solve to this day




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