@jessquit
My view is that gold-money has never had a problem with industrial uses, which actually help underpin its store of value quality, but rather its difficulties performing in fundamental use-cases as money:
Gold's decline and eventual replacement by fiat money:
1) problem with divisibility. This was an early issue seen even before the time of the Roman Empire where the value of a standard gold coin exceeded most transactions, therefore requiring sub-unit coins made in base metals, especially copper, also by silver, which were convertible to gold at a problematic fixed or market rate. Coin-clipping was an early crime. Money had to be visibly standardized for common usage.
2) problem with portability. The bulkiness of gold meant that goldsmith bankers flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries issuing paper receipts which were I.O.U.s for gold. These paper claims, redeemable from the issuer led to private banknote issues by merchants, and joint stock / limited liability banks. Corporate banking was preferred as these institutions had more longevity than I.O.U issuing individuals.
3) problem with extreme portability. Invention of the telegraph and global rollout of undersea cables in the 2nd half of the 19th century meant that long-distance commerce became possible. Business deals could be struck by parties thousands of miles apart, but payment remained problematic. This includes the problem with velocity which also increased as money changed hands faster in advancing economies. The first currencies to be traded long-distance were the pound and dollar, hence this fx-rate is still nicknamed "cable".
4) problem with keeping fractional reserve banking honest. The latter being a perceived problem arising from irregular booms and busts which are part of natural economic cycles. Governments welcomed the concept of central banking as it provided control over money supply and interest rates. It also provides far more more for social welfare spending and warfare (made OK by renaming "Department of War" to "Department of Defence" in many countries).
Moving on to the present day...
Small booms and busts have been banished and the election cycle has moved to front focus. Fractional reserve banking hits systemic limits in 2007/8 and the plates are kept spinning by near-zero interest rates and central bank printing.
Now, the magic of historical co-incidence. Bitcoin is invented and launched in January 2009.
Yet, while Bitcoin perfectly solves gold's problems 1,2,3,4, it does not solve one other fundamental quality of gold, which is its
natural scarcity. For the reason that Bitcoin is a subset of cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency is infinite, with a store of value bolstered only by real-world economic usage, also translated as inertia of the network effect where holders play an important role.
The key to a cryptocurrency successfully becoming "digital gold" can be summed up in a single word:
adoption.
