[william42]

Currency markets exist, but most currency trading is a lot more short-term.

Holding USD is rarely an investment. You put money in your checking account(as opposed to a savings account/CD, which is an investment in the bank) because you expect to spend it(you know, what money is for?) soon. Only banks hold large amounts of USD and they almost immediately loan it out.

And you're right, it's unfair to compare gold to Bitcoin. There are people actually using Bitcoin as a currency, whereas gold is almost exclusively exchanged for actual currencies, which are then exchanged for goods and services.

And the failure of the Zim dollar is the reason they recently returned to the gold standard. Oh wait, no, they switched to USD.