Hard money and gold

Gold has been used for thousands of years as money. The main reason for its prominence and persistence as money throughout history and across the entire world is the fact that it has always been the hardest form of money. This refers to the difficulty of creating more of it and thus its susceptibility to being debased by increases in its supply. Whenever a commodity or good became commonly used as money and was thus seen as valuable, such as glass beads, sea shells, steel knives, lime stone, and so forth, whenever there was a way for people to create more of it, they would inevitably do so. As discussed before, the power to create money out of nothing is simply to enticing and the only limiter is the sheer difficulty of doing so.

Over time, the forms of money that were most difficult to create more of persisted, as all its alternatives got debased by ever faster growing supplies. With those holding the softer forms of money seeing their wealth disappear, they would find refuge in a harder money or inevitably lose the entirety of their wealth. Essentially, the hardest form of money consistently won out in an evolutionary process of sorts as any wealth that remained in society was that which was stored in money that was not being debased by increases in its supply. Gold, by virtue of its limited availability in the earth's crust and the energy required to extract it, has functioned as the hardest form of money throughout human history.