The gold in Earth’s core would be enough to cover the entire surface of the planet with a layer of gold half a meter thick. Humans have been mining gold for thousands of years, but all the gold accumulated on the surface amounts to just over 200,000 tonnes. Melted into a single cube, it would measure twenty-two meters on each side.
Someone on Zhihu asked: If gold were extremely cheap on a planet, while ordinary metals were absurdly expensive, would gold become a building material? It sounds like a physics question, but really, it’s about the ledger.
Let me answer the physics part first. Yes. But it wouldn’t become flooring first. Gold is soft; a fingernail can leave a scratch in it. It’s about two and a half times as dense as iron, and its melting point is 1,064 degrees. To build a house, you need something hard and cheap. Gold is neither. Build a wall with it? It would collapse in the first rain.
But it doesn’t rust. Bury it in soil for a thousand years, dig it up and wipe it off, and it’s still the same color. Something that can be divided, weighed, and tested has what it takes to serve as money. Whether it’s rare or not matters much less.
A lot of people think gold is expensive because there isn’t much of it. In this case, you have to look at it the other way around. Back when Earth was still partly molten, the heavy stuff sank. Gold is more than twice as heavy as iron, so it all ended up down below. Today, more than 99 percent of Earth’s gold is still buried in the core—an absurd amount. The problem is, we can’t get it out. Something thousands of kilometers beneath your feet might as well not exist as far as the living are concerned. The gold in Earth’s crust is so dilute that there are only 0.004 grams per tonne of rock.
So what’s scarce is something else: the tiny fraction that can be mined, weighed, and entered into a ledger. Prices emerge through this process of selection; they aren’t written into the periodic table.
In 2025, global gold mine production was 3,672 tonnes, while total gold demand that year was 5,002 tonnes. Recycled gold made up the shortfall. The Council’s annual report has an even more interesting detail: demand for gold jewelry fell 18 percent, but the amount spent rose by 18 percent. Fewer people bought it. They spent more. The price doesn’t depend on the number of people buying.
Bitcoin’s ledger takes this even further. Its supply is capped at 21 million coins; close to 20 million have already been mined. After the halving, 450 new coins are produced each day. That’s how many there’ll be next year, and that’s how many there’ll be ten years from now. The supply side was settled long ago. There’s not much to argue about. But the price still moves every day. What moves is the other side.
What your coins are worth doesn’t depend on the number written in the code. It depends on how much new money will be willing to come in and buy them tomorrow. That sounds cold. But that’s the whole story. Scarcity is an entry ticket, not the ticket price. That’s true of gold, and it’s just as true of coins with an even smaller total supply that nobody happens to want.
As for exactly how much gold is in Earth’s core, estimates from the scientific community range from enough to cover the planet in a 40-centimeter layer to enough for a one-meter layer. There’s no definitive answer; nobody has actually weighed it. The calculations are based on models of the core’s composition. Change the model, and the number changes with it.
So my answer to the question is: on that planet, gold would become money first, and only then might it become flooring. As long as a group of people is willing to accept it, it can serve as money. If nobody accepts it, it’s just a very soft metal, not worth much more than a few pennies.
$BTC $PAXG $XAUT
#黄金 #稀缺性 #比特币 #代币化黄金 #Cognition
Someone on Zhihu asked: If gold were extremely cheap on a planet, while ordinary metals were absurdly expensive, would gold become a building material? It sounds like a physics question, but really, it’s about the ledger.
Let me answer the physics part first. Yes. But it wouldn’t become flooring first. Gold is soft; a fingernail can leave a scratch in it. It’s about two and a half times as dense as iron, and its melting point is 1,064 degrees. To build a house, you need something hard and cheap. Gold is neither. Build a wall with it? It would collapse in the first rain.
But it doesn’t rust. Bury it in soil for a thousand years, dig it up and wipe it off, and it’s still the same color. Something that can be divided, weighed, and tested has what it takes to serve as money. Whether it’s rare or not matters much less.
A lot of people think gold is expensive because there isn’t much of it. In this case, you have to look at it the other way around. Back when Earth was still partly molten, the heavy stuff sank. Gold is more than twice as heavy as iron, so it all ended up down below. Today, more than 99 percent of Earth’s gold is still buried in the core—an absurd amount. The problem is, we can’t get it out. Something thousands of kilometers beneath your feet might as well not exist as far as the living are concerned. The gold in Earth’s crust is so dilute that there are only 0.004 grams per tonne of rock.
So what’s scarce is something else: the tiny fraction that can be mined, weighed, and entered into a ledger. Prices emerge through this process of selection; they aren’t written into the periodic table.
In 2025, global gold mine production was 3,672 tonnes, while total gold demand that year was 5,002 tonnes. Recycled gold made up the shortfall. The Council’s annual report has an even more interesting detail: demand for gold jewelry fell 18 percent, but the amount spent rose by 18 percent. Fewer people bought it. They spent more. The price doesn’t depend on the number of people buying.
Bitcoin’s ledger takes this even further. Its supply is capped at 21 million coins; close to 20 million have already been mined. After the halving, 450 new coins are produced each day. That’s how many there’ll be next year, and that’s how many there’ll be ten years from now. The supply side was settled long ago. There’s not much to argue about. But the price still moves every day. What moves is the other side.
What your coins are worth doesn’t depend on the number written in the code. It depends on how much new money will be willing to come in and buy them tomorrow. That sounds cold. But that’s the whole story. Scarcity is an entry ticket, not the ticket price. That’s true of gold, and it’s just as true of coins with an even smaller total supply that nobody happens to want.
As for exactly how much gold is in Earth’s core, estimates from the scientific community range from enough to cover the planet in a 40-centimeter layer to enough for a one-meter layer. There’s no definitive answer; nobody has actually weighed it. The calculations are based on models of the core’s composition. Change the model, and the number changes with it.
So my answer to the question is: on that planet, gold would become money first, and only then might it become flooring. As long as a group of people is willing to accept it, it can serve as money. If nobody accepts it, it’s just a very soft metal, not worth much more than a few pennies.
$BTC $PAXG $XAUT
#黄金 #稀缺性 #比特币 #代币化黄金 #Cognition