> Whereas to me, it's wild that thousands of years of gold bullion trade as a form of currency exchange is supplanted basically overnight and now only "gold but only on paper" would be considered the only form of real gold currency.

I mean, it's not a coincidence. For example, the US government has laws against using gold as currency, and they take those laws seriously and enforce them with vigor. They don't want dollars to suffer the competition.

Given the laws, it is necessarily the case, by definition, that gold is not currency.

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nerdsniper 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> the US government has laws against using gold as currency

I don't think that's true, or I can't find any evidence of it. If you want to buy a car and the seller agrees to accept 50 gold coins instead of $100,000 cash, that is perfectly legal. Hell, the US makes currency out of pure gold that are currency at face values of $5-50 (but the gold in the coins is worth 100x more than the face value).

Are you talking about the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 and Executive Order 6102? That banned private ownership of gold and demanded that citizens turn in their gold. But it was lifted in 1974.

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thaumasiotes 9 hours ago | parent [-]

> If you want to buy a car and the seller agrees to accept 50 gold coins instead of $100,000 cash, that is perfectly legal.

You're free to barter in general. 50 gold coins, though, would probably be illegal even though 50 marble statues is fine.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/486

Using gold (or any metal) as currency ["current money"] is specifically illegal if the metal is coined.

You'd need to establish that it never crossed the seller's mind that he might later exchange those coins for something else. As an isolated incident, you'll have a fairly strong defense. If there's been another transaction in gold coins in your area recently enough that either of you might have known about it, you won't.

	▲	anabab 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		How do goldbacks fit into this? They contain gold (up to 3 grams, a non-trivial amount), they are accepted by a (small) number of businesses, and they are supposed to be reused for further transactions.

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JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> the US government has laws against using gold as currency, and they take those laws seriously and enforce them with vigor

This is nonsense. If you'd like, you can absolutely sell your house for gold bullion. (Or Japanese yen or bails of peanuts.)