All That Glitters Isn’t Gold – Why Bitcoin Is Better Money

You might have noticed that thanks to Elon Musk, the word DOGE is once again dominating the headlines. Thankfully however, this time it’s not because he’s promoting some gimmicky, dog-themed scam coin, but because of his newly unveiled ‘Department of Government Efficiency’.

This new department is causing quite the stir, not just because of its meme-worthy acronym, but because of what it represents; a direct assault on the bureaucratic bloat that has plagued government institutions for decades.

DOGE’s mission is anything but ambiguous. It exists to root out Government inefficiency, cut through the red tape, and force government agencies to justify their existence with real-world results. In Musk’s own words:

“The goal of DOGE is simple: government should serve the people, not itself.”

DOGE has wasted no time getting to work, and in classic Musk style has been nothing short of swift and brutal in its approach. Whilemost of us are already painfully aware of how inefficient and incompetentgovernment is, even the most sceptical amongst us were probably not preparedfor just how much rot, corruption and waste DOGE would uncover in such a shortspace of time.

Ever wondered why you’re taxed so heavily but receive very little benefit in return? Reports like this do a great job of explaining why:

Any sane American taxpayer should be asking themselves why a portion of their monthly paycheck would go towards funding things like ‘improving public procurement in Serbia’ or ‘Voter Confidence in Liberia’. How could these initiatives possibly benefit American taxpayers and how on earth do these crazy schemes get approved?  

The answer can only be one of two things: extreme incompetence at best, or at worst, outright fraud designed to steal taxpayers’ money by siphoning it off into sham ‘government initiatives’.

We’ll let you be the judge of which you think is most likely.

Unsurprisingly, DOGE’s actions haven’t been popular with everyone. Critics are already up in arms, calling DOGE an overreach, a publicity stunt, or, ironically, a waste of taxpayer money. But for millions of ordinary people tired of watching governments burn through cash with little to show for it, DOGE represents an opportunity for them to find out exactly where their money has been going.

Perhaps the people trying to stop DOGE’s efforts already know the American people might not be too happy with what they uncover?

And while the nation is still trying to process the news that the US government spent $20 million on making an Iraqi spin-off version of Sesame Street, Musk and his team have decided to up the stakes even further. Ina move nobody except Ron Paul was expecting, Musk has now announced plans to audit Fort Knox!

Could the gold that’s allegedly kept there actually be missing?

Things could be about to get interesting!

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A Brief History of Fort Knox

In 1933 America was in the grips of the great depression. The government under Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency concluded that one of the reasons for this economic stagnation was because Americans were ‘hoarding’ their wealth in gold rather than spending their money and ‘stimulating’ the economy.

This led to Roosevelt enacting Executive Order 6102, banning private gold ownership. American citizens were forced to sell any gold or gold certificates held at the Federal Reserve back to US government at a set price of $20.67 per Troy ounce.

And it wasn’t optional either. Comply or face a $10,000 fine or ten years’ imprisonment!

But the American people at least got a good deal on their gold, right?

Well not exactly. Just one year later in 1934, the US Government issued the ‘Gold Reserve Act’ revaluing gold from $20.67 per ounce to $35 per ounce. That’s 69% more than the US government had forced its citizens to sell it to them for just a year earlier!

To add insult to injury, not only were US Citizens completely ripped off, they were also banned from holding a relatively stable monetary asset (gold) and forced instead to hold US dollars which could be debased with the stroke of a pen.

After plundering the gold of its citizens the US government now had to find a sensible way to look after it. The world was an unstable place in the late 30’s. War clouds were brewing over Europe, and Japan was on an imperial mission to carve territory away from China.

Determined to keep their stash of ill-gotten treasure safe, these rising global tensions saw the US government settle on plans to store its gold in an impenetrable fortress right in the heart of America, the famous Fort Knox.

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Could Fort Knox Really Be Empty?

This impenetrable fortress in Kentucky is a granite-walled bunker that is reportedly ‘bomb-proof’. It has 20 tonne vault doors, cameras, motion sensors, and heavily armed guards with tanks patrolling its perimeter. A facility like this only gets breached in the movies.

So, the gold couldn’t possibly be more safe right? All of it must still be there, right?

Well, that’s the crazy thing. Nobody really knows….

The U.S Treasury and the Mint claim to audit the gold holdings at Fort Knox on a yearly basis and claim it contains 147.3 million troy ounces currently worth north of $400 billion. They cite these numbers publicly in official statements like yearly reports and press releases and the reported quantity of gold has remained steady since the 70’s.

This all sounds quite above board until you realise, we’re expected to just trust these figures. Do we really trust the government to mark its own homework?

No thorough independent audit of Fort Knox has been conducted in decades. The last widely recognized audit of Fort Knox involving a physical inspection occurred on September 23, 1974. This event did allow a group of Congressional representatives and journalists to view a portion of the gold, but it was more of a public reassurance than a comprehensive audit. Only about 6% of the gold was reportedly inspected, and no detailed verification of serial numbers, purity, or total inventory was conducted.

Like a lot of other Americans, Elon Musk appears dissatisfied with this lack of transparency, and it looks like a much more thorough audit of the gold reserves at Fort Knox could be about to take place!

Time to grab the popcorn…

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Bitcoin’s Superiority to Gold

It’s going to be fascinating to see to what extent Elon and DOGE can reveal about the true quantity of gold held at Fort Knox. But what this story demonstrates more than anything is Bitcoin’s clear superiority over gold.

It’s all well and good for DOGE to declare it will audit Fort Knox, but how exactly is it going to go about it? Verifying the authenticity of 4,583 metric tonnes of gold is no mean feat!

Verifying the gold requires more than just checking the number of bars or referencing their serial numbers. To verify things properly you also need to verify that the bars are authentic and don’t contain less valuable metals like Tungsten. There are methods to do this like tests with acid, X-rays or even just melting the gold down, but you would have to repeat the process on EVERY bar to do a full audit.

And how would the results of the audit be shared? Will Musk livestream the whole process so Americans can verify things for themselves, or do we now just take DOGE’s word for it?

The bottom line is, it’s expensive and inconvenient to verify gold and ultimately, you’re probably going to have trust someone else’s word on the matter.

Contrast that with the fact that the entire Bitcoin network is verified every 10 minutes by every single node on the network. It’s a stark difference. With a stockpile of gold you’re always going to be outsourcing your trust and relying on someone else to verify things. With Bitcoin you can verify everything yourself very easily with nothing more than some consumer grade electronics and free software.

Compared to Bitcoin, Gold is an outdated form of money. Bitcoin is more portable, more convenient to transact in, easier to move across borders, harder to confiscate, and of course, much easier to verify. Gold holds its value much better than infinite fiat currencies do, but it’s simply not a viable solution for sound money.

Even if governments moved back to a gold standard, history shows us that it’s just a matter of time until they break everyone’s trust and start running a fractional reserve. Gold has demonstrated that despite its finite supply, it cannot constrain the greed of governments and central banks.

A new solution is required. That new solution is Bitcoin.  

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Build A Fortress for Your Bitcoin

We would all love to get a peek behind the vault door at Fort Knox. If the gold that’s claimed to be there isn’t, then it would be the biggest scandal of the century.

But now that Bitcoin exists, the relevance of gold and the role it will play in global finance will diminish. Gold will of course continue to outperform fiat currency because it has a ‘finite’ supply, but its value will be derived from its use in electronics and jewellery rather than being based on any sort of monetary premium. In that regard Bitcoin wil lcompletely usurp it.

And of course one of the coolest advantages Bitcoin has overgold is that it’s far easier for you to own it and protect it yourself! If you’re willing to learn some new skills, then with some inexpensive hardware and free open-source software, you can create your own digital Fort Knox without needing to build a reinforced bunker or buy yourself a tank.

When you’re ready to learn those skills reach out to our expert team for a free 30-minute consultation. In no time at all we will have you confidently sending air-gapped transactions and running your own node.

We don’t know if any gold will be there when we open the vault doors in Fort Knox. But we can make sure your Bitcoin is always there when you open your wallet.