"When Puerto Rico was leveled by Hurricanes this past year, bitcoin and blockchain assets were not an option for basic necessities - silver coins became invaluable for survival."
"Granted, not everyone is in the path of a hurricane or even sees catastrophic weather very often, but having a backup is never a bad idea."
True, and the range of all unforeseen things that make the internet temporarily inaccessible will be built into the value no matter where you're located or what your circumstance is.
And in a distant future where crypto replaces fiat, all the more important to have this decentralized backup (now that there aren't fiat notes to use).
So at any stage of crypto adoption it does seem a role for metals remains, at least for a long, long time until we've smoothed out life's uncertainties to the point where we're always sure there will be internet.
"The problem is, the price of silver is not a free market. Paper contracts in amounts that supersede anything that is mined on a yearly basis are traded on a daily basis - the market is rigged."
For this reason, I would never want to own paper gold. I imagine it's like pushing on a string and they can't manipulate the price forever, right? But they probably have a loooot of rope, since so much of the money today is happy to trust institutions to hold it and very few are ever calling for delivery.
The same concept can eventually happen with bitcoin (and maybe already is, with futures contracts underway). But, much much less of the market is conditioned to using paper ownership.
I don't expect they'd be able to tame bitcoin's growth pattern anyways, but maybe could influence market psychology and when exactly the booms and busts happen.
Good analogy!
thanks!