🧐 Using "Silver" as a clue, try to glimpse the "History of Consensus Migration" in the human world.

This year, gold has risen over 70%, and silver has surged over 150%, becoming the best-performing precious metal in investment returns this year.

As early as 3,000 years ago in the Sumerian civilization, the earliest human currency unit: Shekel, was based on silver as the valuation unit. After the Tang and Song dynasties, China also began to adopt silver as a universal currency. It can be said that at a certain moment, silver held a global monetary consensus.

Today, silver has become a common industrial raw material, having experienced three instances of consensus collapse in history.

As a precious metal that runs through human history, silver has long served as a "monetary anchor."

Using "silver" as a starting point, and interspersing multiple instances of consensus collapse in human history along the timeline, let's try to outline the history of human consensus migration:

1️⃣ The three collapses of silver's consensus:

1550: The discovery of silver mines in the New World and the emergence of new smelting technologies like the amalgamation process led to a significant increase in silver production. The massive supply shock began to shake the consensus on silver's purchasing power.

1890: The expansion of the gold standard completely ended the monetary system consensus of silver. The US dollar also began to anchor to gold, and silver became a product and industrial raw material. The price structure was redefined.

2000: With the replacement of old photographic technology relying on silver halide film by digital imaging technology, the once huge demand for silver started to shrink. From then on, silver fully became a common precious metal.

2️⃣ Other notable consensus collapse events:

Aluminum, initially difficult to purify, once exceeded gold in price. After the advent of electrolytic aluminum in 1886, the narrative of precious metals quickly faded, and aluminum became a common industrial material.

Natural pearls once were Dubai's pillar industry, with extremely low shipment rates supporting a sky-high market, even more expensive than "diamonds." In 1920, Japan invented freshwater pearl farming technology, directly turning pearls into inexpensive daily jewelry.

Speaking of diamonds, this year, the price was also brought down by "Henan Cultured Diamonds." The performance of cultured diamonds is now almost identical to the best natural diamonds. Apart from professional identification, they are indistinguishable to the naked eye. The diamond market is now basically fractured.

3️⃣ Bitcoin or gold?

During Dubai #blockchainweek, big brother @cz_ had a debate with the "Godfather of Gold" Peter Schiff @PeterSchiff on "Gold vs. Bitcoin." Let's discuss 🤔.

Historically, gold and silver are very similar, both having served as "monetary anchors" and both being de-linked from "fiat currency." They are now just one main scarce consensus away from being downgraded to ordinary industrial raw materials. This scarce consensus might also be shaken by $BTC .

After all, Bitcoin's deflationary nature can be verified on-chain and cannot be tampered with, whereas the reserves of gold remain a mystery to this day.

It is said that recently, Saudi Arabia has discovered a 1,200-ton gold mine. Plus, in the near future, humanity will definitely enter the interstellar era, and space mining is unavoidable. The scarcity narrative of gold, I really don't know how long it can last 🤣.

👉 Final point:

In human history, the longest-lasting things are not gold, empires, or laws, but consensus. Consensus can collapse, but it never disappears; it migrates. Perhaps very soon, we will also experience such moments of consensus collapse.