Ah, so gold is a shiny rock that doesn't have a decentralized transmission network (the internet). Mining and smelting gold requires quite a bit of electricity

Ah, so gold is a shiny rock that doesn't have a decentralized transmission network (the internet). Mining and smelting gold requires quite a bit of electricity. But Bitcoin the network undoubtedly uses more. As for small denominations, Bitcoin goes down to a single unit of Satoshi (1/100 millionth of a btc) and since its digital, subdivision is trivial. So despite this, there are far more retail and commercial opportunities to exchange your btc for goods and services, where as I don't know of any place I can trade gold coins for things.