This is my concern, honestly. Madoff is a perfect risk example everyone coulda-shoulda seen from the outside but trusted from the inside until the collapse. Also, in my younger years I had crossed path with unsavory characters whose entire existence was based on scams, which made them excessively cash rich. I'd learned that their biggest project was to lease vaults from under a reputable stock exchange and promote themselves as a non bank, secured vault for gold deposits. Their intention was simply to wait a few years, empty the vault and disappear....I don't know if they ever succeeded, only that they had to leave Europe quickly. But, assuming it is not a scam, the reason I shared this is because clearly, before BTC or as a result of BTC, some in the gold industry devised ways to turn the metal into a alternative payment method, not so much as a way to bypass government regulations and taxation (although the latter may be), but as a way to stem inflationary pressure on currencies, also a primary goal of the Bitcoin community. From my understanding, the holding entity isn't storing gold bars but gold coins, purchased/traded around the world. I really don't know how the payment mechanism works, but they clearly have to track clients expenses against their gold holdings. They must also have charge limits and approval thresholds. I don't know what their processing charge is, but the last 10 years inflation has been atrocious while gold has shot through the roof so if this is legit, it's an interesting proposition.
Our posts cross but your explanation works for me. If their fee is 5% it's still reasonable at a time of high inflation and the doubling price of gold. To clarify, this is the doings of an elderly lady who's been buying gold all these years expecting the collapse of the banking system, feeding on online paranoia. In the end, she's done quite well with it.
Well, in the US you have to declare if you own any crypto, as far as I remember. Gold (physical) has its own problems, but you don’t have to declare it until you sell it. My point is that there is no perfection in the world
Just to add some gasoline to the fire, something like this would not happen to gold: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2...-with-31m-transaction-fee-largest-in-history/
I'm not going to read all of this. Gold is absolutely useless for anything other than jewelry at this point. What is being discussed can be done with Bitcoin. I think on crypto.com you can get a Bitcoin credit card that will deduct purchases from your crypto assets.
Couldn't the opposite hold true as well? Why use BTC with its wild value swings when you can buy and pay from stored gold with a credit card?