Wouldn’t that be for the same kinds of reasons things like purple dyes were valuable: rare to find, hard to harvest, hard to transmogrify (insect/sea life guts into clothing dye, gold into chains or other wearables), hard to break, which all culminates into a quick visual indication of wealth.

Now? Gold is a great conductor of electricity (of course silver is better) and some people still like wearing lots of flashy jewelry.

I have no earthly clue why people find it valuable to invest in other than it’s like bitcoin: it’s valuable because everyone else also thinks it’s valuable.

Never once have I read a quarterly progress report from the CEO of the element “gold” outlining profit strategies for the next year.

Just because it doesn’t generate a yield doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value. Fresh drinking water is incredibly valuable and will be more so as its supply dwindles.