According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_as_an_investment), quoting the Gold Council from 2010, about 20% of all gold mined per year goes into ETFs and other speculation, and the remaining 80% into industrial and jewellery production. I would call that a utilitarian application for it. Your 99% figure might be including the amounts staked in gold futures, but as you haven’t given a reference, it’s impossible to know. But your figure looks wrong based on the Gold Council figures.
“If you were in one of the economies [sp] with hyperinflation or censored economy…”
I know there have been rumours about people taking money out of Cyprus, Zimbabwe and Venezuela during their currency/banking crises, and abroad out of China. The problem with these stories is that they tend to make a lot from a little; when closer examination is made, there’s little sign of any appreciable currency movement. Apart from anything, using bitcoin still requires one to make a payment in Currency A to someone who will accept Currency A and give you bitcoin in return. Zimbabwean dollars might not be widely accepted. Similarly, the banking crisis in Cyprus led to hefty restrictions on currency movements. So you wouldn’t be able to exchange the money.
Similarly: assume you get your money out of the hyperinflation economy and into bitcoin. OK, now what are you going to do to buy food and so on with? Hyperinflation economies are bad, no argument, but amazingly they still function, and tend to do so for surprisingly long periods (as in months or years). In that situation, you’d be better to have converted your Currency A into US dollars, which is accepted around the world as something or clear perceived exchange value. And you wouldn’t have wanted to round-trip your bitcoin (Currency A -> bitcoin -> dollars) because (1) exchange losses are hefty (2) now your currency is abroad.
Of course if you think moving your money out of a hyperinflation economy is fine, then you’re generally talking about people who are very wealthy and so can bear the exchange losses because they’re going to follow their money. (How did you think they’d pay for their ticket out?) The situation of the WW2 Jewish population in Germany is one where a lot of wealth was tied up in property — which is where wealth tends to reside. Their highest priority was indeed getting out. I think bitcoin might have helped, but it’s marginal compared to the problem of liquidating the value that resides in a shop or a house.
It’s nice of you to address “US people”, though I’m not one of them. Any time Russia or China want to ditch the dollar, I think they’re free to. I even suspect they have actually developed their own currencies, though maybe that’s just a rumour.
