I'm not one of the millions of investors who're convinced that equities are the best...and perhaps the only...path to financial security.

As difficult at that path is, it's only half as difficult as preserving assets in a climate of climbing risks that include inflation. For years I've stayed away from stocks because it's obvious, to me, that the immediate gain--especially in a controlled market-- is in perpetual danger of the Perfect Global Storm.

As I look down the path, it seems to me that asset (wealth) preservation (safety) is the guiding light. The path winds between predators on all sides--inflation and other thieves--and we'd better be able to identify them and maintain an updated list of them.

A statement I read somewhere said that the market will end when the easy money ends. Surely every effort will be made to keep easy money flowing, but, at some point, the link between easy money and hard realities will make easy money irrelevant. There's one lesson that life teaches us that's forever being missed...and that is human planners--even those assisted by AI--always miss something.  No matter how confident the planners are and how comprehensive the planning is, there is always some Achilles Heel, some little over-looked detail that, sooner or later, collapses the entire enterprise.  How to be prepared, and what to be able do at that point, seems a lot more important than making a few bucks that will disappear in tomorrow's trades.

I'm just as convinced as ever that hard assets will increase in value/price when the market for paper becomes squishy and softens before collapse, and that gold and silver will always have a hedging role in stabilizing uncertain economies--personal, national, and global. But, grudgingly, I'm facing the fact that technology and communications have made the age we're living in different from the ages that call history.

In ages past, if times got tough, a little silver and a little gold would go a long way in bartering for eggs, milk, butter, oats, corn, shoes, and shelter. Silver dimes, quarters, and dollars may again be the ticket when the economic sun sinks and fails to rise, but grudgingly, I'm swinging round to the likelihood that barter in our Wired and Wireless World will be dominated by transactions that may no longer be just local, but which may be increasingly global.

In the event that the next economic crash kicks off an age in which our needs for goods, quality, and prices may be satisfied by non-local sources/suppliers, we will need something more than a gold-silver payment system...something that's quick and flexible...and safe.

Some say that one of the reasons why prices of gold and silver have not risen--in a climate of decreasing supply--is because people are buying Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies instead of precious metals. It's entirely possible that much of the money that, in the past, would have gone toward the purchase of gold and silver, has been boosting the purchase of cryptocurrencies--hundreds of them.

Two big deterrents have kept many of us out of cryptos. First is the complexity of investing.

Buying equities is as easy as walking into (or calling or going online) to a broker, but the purchase of cryptos seems vastly more complicated. Maybe not. Maybe it's just as simple as buying stocks, but the psychological hurdle is a major one. The second deterrent has been the porous security at the point where cryptocurrencies are "banked."We've been horrified by reports of massive thefts of cryptos by anonymous hackers--Bonnies and Clydes who leave no fingerprints or bullet casings. If purchasers can buy cryptos with greater convenience, and store them with assurance of fool-proof security, sales would undoubtedly soar.

I've never been SOLD on Bitcoin. It's the Granddaddy and best-known of the crypto-currencies. It enjoys the brand recognition of being the first thing people think of when cryptos enter the conversation, but the pioneers don't always offer advantages and improvements that followers do.  My thought is to develop a short list of a half-dozen crypto-currencies that you like--perhaps for different strengths--and make limited investments in each of them. It's still early in the Crypto Game, and time may tell you if, and where, you want to concentrate your crypto assets.

Diversification has always been a winning strategy in the investment world. Gold or silver under the mattress is an investment. Whatever you do with your dollars is an investment.

And I'm thinking that tucking away a few jars of cryptos for a rainy day is probably one of the most pragmatic things we can do in this Electronic Age.

If the Wall Streets go down, if equities get squashed, if banks and banking systems go like Mother Hubbard's cupboard, if retail is curtailed, and if communications systems fizzle, survival still rules. Markets may be a shadow of what they once were, but there will be some activity. Banks will still seek depositors and borrowers. Stores shelves may not be full, but there will be goods for sale. Communication systems won't ever regress to Morse Code and rotary-dial phones.

Life will continue and basic needs and hungers will keep stirring everyone's economic pot.

Innovation won't take a vacation, and new ways of dealing with old issues will surface.

Whether you're in Boston or Beijing gold and silver will be the money on which all currencies fiat and crypto, are based and judged, and having them is always advisable. But gold and silver may not be the currency people want or need or understand. And cryptos may not be wanted, needed, or understood by others. But, I'm more and more convinced that having a stash of several highly-regarded cryptocurrencies could, in Future World's desperate times, go a long way in facilitating crucial and perhaps life-saving transactions.