I think the real reason is that they're afraid of political instability in the US that may result in 1) an inability to retrieve their gold, or 2) the government confiscating it.
I think the idea is to rise the value of your currency, you rise the demand for your currency, by selling for it something that everybody wants, like gold.
Of course this demand is artificial and you'll run out of hold to sell at some point, but it can hopefully carry you over thd bump.
Sincere question.
Nations like to use it for reserves because it’s stable, historically fit for the purpose of exchange, and well-understood. You can “count” it and use this to settle balances in a way that outsiders can’t easily interfere with.
Almost all “value” is strange and complex. Why is Francium, which is less useful than even gold, worth a theoretical $28 billion per ounce? (Not that you would find any buyers for that quantity.) Why is a Black Lotus card worth $3 million? Why is a dollar worth whatever you can buy for a dollar?
The short but final answer: because other people want it.
Massivly surprised to see a link to this storyline/paradigm here on HN, great!
Cheers! :-))
If you belive in such stories, it may explain why humans are so focused on Gold, and not other precious metals, which are much more rare.
The idea behind the story is just great, isnt it? The idea of whatever space travelling species to come here to mine for gold with human "robots" is really cool. While they could have landed on asteroids which much more Gold-per-ton, they chosed earth because the bio machines available here didnt need any "outer planetary" maintenance or refills?
:-D
edit: and they can replicate easily given enough environment, so you do not need spareparts when e.g. a disk fails?
Half a million years later we are still at it. Innovation is like, rock music, bitcoin mining, minecraft etc
Pretty deep
And, gold is limited (in recoverable quantities) in Earth's crust. Nobody can print a bunch more of it, unlike fiat currency.
Between those two, it's what many people reach for when they fear that the government is going to devalue their currency. They can buy now, with currency that will soon be worth less, and what they buy will be worth something even after the currency becomes worth less.
Because you sell it cheap.
> Almost seems like crypto, it has value because it is somewhat rare… and everyone else also thinks it has value.
Exactly.
It has value because it won't spoil and you can sell it later gor the same or more because it's scarce.
A lot of this stuff is just business as usual, and then tabloids like to turn it into some doom and gloom nonsense.
Germany 47.2 USA 96.7 France 108.8 Italy 127.7
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102?wprov=sfl...