Suppose that in a near future such a technology exists that allows any substance to be rather cheaply transformed into an other, enabling us to make silver out or rocks, and gold out of leafs.
Assuming the cost of the process is bearable (some speculate that such a technology already exists in cold fusion), it is easy to see that what would follow would be an equalization (within the limits of the cost of the process) of the prices of all prime materials.
My question is: what would evolve as money in such a market (assume no state is present)?
Every raw material would be almost fiat paper in its replicability.
No one knows and that is a good thing. Free markets are the best method of discovery humanity has at its disposal. So if the folks at that future time are smart then they would simply let market forces determine what money is and how to value it. It is kind of ironic that the worst method of discovery, top down bureaucracy, is the method currently in use to determine what money is: Fiat Currency, and how to value it.
In fact that is the Austrian position on money currently. That is to let the free market decide what it is and how to value it. It just happens that gold, silver and copper have been widely used in the past due to their properties.
The ‘near future’ bit aside, other things would be still more precious than others, and some would be more practical for monetary purposes. Mayhaps energy will finally become currency, or some other thing with less material substance. Then again, making raw, prime materials is very far from getting finished products, so there may be exotic alloys, anagathics (longevity drugs) and other hard- or impossible-to-synthesize substances (like the Spice from Dune). Take your pick, write a science fiction story.
some speculate that such a technology already exists in cold fusion
Cold fusion doesn’t exist yet. And even hot fusion might not cut it. I’m guessing that a fusion reactor or fusion (i.e. hydrogen) bomb will produce plenty of helium, lithium, and heavy isotopes; but very few silver or gold atoms. And these techniques are tremendously expensive. But yeah, it’s possible to create silver and gold.
what would evolve as money in such a market (assume no state is present)?
Pretty seashells.
Maybe titles to certain volumes of space.
Or maybe antimatter. It’s probably the most expensive substance we know of: “According to CERN, it has cost a few hundred million Swiss Francs to produce about 1 billionth of a gram (the amount used so far for particle/antiparticle collisions).” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter
I think Peter`s thinking is better.