Bitcoin Forum

Some people says physical gold is more important, I should have physical instead of paper gold. But I dont understand why.

I trade easily in paper gold, spread is low so I lose less while trading. Banking system is powerful in my country, Turkey.

Physical gold can be stolen easily, I dont prefer having gold in my home, it is so dangerous imo, thieves are everywhere in my hood :)

What do you think?

edit: Guys I have read all your comments but still not satisfied. You all say that paper gold is not gold itself, just a promise; so having physical gold is more trusting even there is a possibility of theft.

Maybe I understand something different when saying paper gold.

Gold account at banks such as HSBC, BNP Paribas or ICBC is really less safer than keeping the gold at home?? And even if these accounts are guaranteed by the government up to $30k in each account?

Good question. If you own gold on paper you don't actually own the gold. You own the rights to someone else's gold (usually an investment company). If that company goes out of business for any reason you could lose your money. If you own physical gold you have complete control over it. You're not at the mercy of the success of the business.

In some countries there are protections for investors if the company goes bankrupt.

Owning physical gold gives you all the control but you also have to find a place to store it, keep it secure, etc.

The same concept applies with Bitcoin.

I am totally agree. it is not about how safe the gold when you have it in your house or in a paper, but how you control it. I prefer physical gold than paper one because I can see it, but what about paper gold? does the gold really exist?

Paper gold is just like a banknote. You do not have the gold in your possession but the note/paper entitles you to a fixed amount of it.
When you buy paper gold it is like buying a bond. The paper isn't worth anything but the gold it is attached to is. If you would want to cash out it would be more difficult. If something were to happen to the issuing authority then your paper gold would be worthless.
If you had the physical gold in your possession then you actually have something that is worth its weight in gold according to market prices.

Paper gold is just a promise to give you gold. Promises can be broken.

For me even if it will be harder to hold physical gold, I would still prefer it since it is safer to just lock it or get it on a safety deposit box on a bank rater than trust someone who promises to give gold because of some paper gold that I got. Like what the quote above says even if you lose only a little in trading paper gold because the spread is low, there's a chance that the promise will be broke by the one who promised you.

if gold investment i like and prefered use physical gold
if physical you can selling anytime and you need cash money, this mean is physical gold is liquid to cash money, you can selling anytime and anywhere

Does gold price increase or decrease 20% in matter of one week? nope but bitcoin price does. bitcoin is only available digitally and if something were to happen it would effect all the existed coins. can you determine the exact amount of gold on earth or there might be more gold mines not found yet?
Did you know scientists now can easily produce fake (better say artificial/man made) diamonds? and who knows maybe someday in the future they could heat atoms enough to change them (fusion) into whatever element they want(like gold) but bitcoin is determined to be only 21m in total and safeguarded by the security that blockchain technology offers.

Now go on and trade your gold lol

Physical gold has been valuable for thousands of years paper gold is a new invention and is easily manipulated by central bankers.

If you like the easiness of trading from your home then paper gold allows you to trade in a very liquid market, but with paper gold you don’t own gold so if for some reason the price of gold were to increase a lot you will not be able to take advantage of it.

I think this can be debated..  A banknote is backed by the full faith and credit of the government that sponsors, issues it. Paper gold is backed by the the assets the company issuing the gold investment has. Depending on your perspective you might trust the business more so than the government.


And this guy, no offense, doesn't really know what they're talking about. Paper gold isn't a "new invention" it's just shares in a fund that only owns gold. The idea is as novel as owning stock...which has existed for over 100 years.

Think about it this way - the companies offering gold investments (i.e., paper gold), have more to lose by scamming their customers than they do by actually scamming their customers.

Yes, the gold is really exist (if you store it) in banks or trusted state-owned enterprises or at least government backed the firm.
Why we should store the precious gold under the supervision of another person (banks) instead of store it at home?
If your home is really safe without any risk of thieves, than it would be fine.
But, consider how much value of gold (ex: I have 5kg of gold), I prefer to save it in bank obviously.

Paper gold just like a piece of paper similar to stocks as you describe.The investor
also does not have a promise that they will ever hold the rights to any physical gold.
the OP trade on paper gold, good for you so you are probably profiting (or loosing)
on price swings. However, I think holding a physical gold has its advantage as well.
If you invest in this physical metal as oppose to paper, in case of a disaster like
currency crisis, economic disaster or financial system breakdown, then holding
a physical gold stored in vault is a good leverage IMHO.

the key part is what i made bold.
as others have said when you are using paper gold, it is a promise not gold itself. i agree that it is easier and more convenient but can you be absolutely sure that the promise they made to you will never be broken? if so trade away and have fun.

in any case both methods have their own risks.
for example buying physical gold is not only makes you susceptible to thievery but also it is always the risk of buying fake gold (e.g. there are some fake gold coins looking just like the real ones flying around in my country).

I would prefer to have a physical gold rather than to have a paper gold I have full control over it ! If I own a gold it isn't just a part but as a whole of it ! ofcourse owning a physical gold involve risk but it can be minimised If you can just carefully stored it to a place where only you can know ! physical gold is not that common nowadays so people can never tell of you had a gold or nothing

Me too I will choose physical gold than the paper one.Like you said we have a control on it unlike the paper one.And it much better that you owned a physical gold because its more precious than the paper one.

Just as you said it all depends on the location. Here in my area in the Southern Part of the Philippines we do not use paper gold. We are engaging in small scale mining operations and for us physical gold is much better than paper gold. Majority of the people who engaged in mining doesn't know about computers and paper gold has no value or useless for them. What they value the most is physical gold since its easy for us to exchange it to our local fiat currency.

If we are to compare both, they have different aspects, same goes for their respective usage and access by most of the people using this asset. If by any means you are having an advantage to one of them then goes in that way as you will feel comfortable there.



With the current news about the closure of some mining companies there, I think it's time now to open new things and they can consider learning the art of accessing paper gold.

I would greatly prefer physical gold just for the pleasure to touch it, to lick it, to talk to it. That would be stupid to buy a promise of a good rather than a good, especially if they are priced the same.

I will always prefer physical gold since even if it can be stolen, for me it is safer to invest in it than just trust someone to keep gold for you since that's how paper gold works. I would rather lock my gold inside a locker on my house or get it into a safety deposit box on a bank they are more trusted for me than those people/companies who keep the gold you buy on paper gold.

Guys I have read all your comments but still not satisfied. You all say that paper gold is not gold itself, just a promise; so having physical gold is more trusting even there is a possibility of theft.

Maybe I understand something different when saying paper gold.

Gold account at banks such as HSBC, BNP Paribas or ICBC is really less safer than keeping the gold at home?? And even if these accounts are guaranteed by the government up to $30k in each account?

Exactly.
Although banks are often a 'safe' bet and are insured up to a certain amount, they are far from flawless. Take Lehman Brothers or Northern Rock as examples. Following the financial crisis they went under.
If you have the gold safely in your possession then no matter what happens to the bank, you still have that gold.
Say someone had $50k in gold in an account held by a bank. If the account is only insured up to $30k and the bank goes bust, then ultimately he'll lose $20k as he's only insured for $30k/$50k held by the bank.
Had he kept the $50k of gold in person then he'd still have the $50k of gold whatever happens (not accounting for loss/theft).

If you don't touch the gold then you can't count that you already hold or own 100% the gold because something outside can happen. You may think that it is safer to hold the paper gold because it is less risky since you don't hold it physically but if you lose this letter you may lose the gold ??

I better recommend you a line item between paper and physical gold i.e. having physical gold and deposit it with bank. In this way, you would have around 1-2% yearly profits on your gold and can liquidate again in Gold anytime with increased amount. In my country (India), government has recently launched scheme related to as said above and scheme is great success!

I'll say it again.  Physical gold has been real money for thousands of years.  Paper gold/money has been around since paper was invented a couple hundred years ago, its new in historical terms.  Physical gold will always be money.  No government or person can change that.  Paper can be diluted and destroyed.  Promises of redemption can be broken.  Only real physical gold will survive any paper money crisis.

In fact I think you are absolutely right , paper is perhaps the most unsafe way to store value, since it's just a promise, no one guarantees that the one who makes the promise still exists at the moment of wanting to make the exchange in the future,  can also be altered due to humidity, breakage, oversights, running the risk that when presenting it to exchange it can not be accepted given the conditions of the document, definitely not a good choice.

As long as you know how to hide the gold, physical is the best because you actually own it. Think about this way: If you can't lick it, you don't own it. That piece of paper may not mean shit especially when your country is being ruled by a dictator. I wouldn't trust papers if i were you. For you, bitcoin is the most safest choice. If not, go for the physical gold coins.

Check this website it gives you great hints about where to hide your gold:
https://goldsilver.com/blog/how-to-hide-your-gold-and-silver/

Bear in mind, thieves also read those articles so you need to be smarter and more creative but those articles will give you a good starting point.

It is fully dependent on your purposes. If you are only looking for trading purposes then ETF kind of paper gold is more appropriate for you rather than risking with physical gold. If you are able to safeguard your storage and able to manage properly your physical gold for buying and selling purposes then there would be no differences between physical gold and paper gold.

Based on your purposes and your capability, just choose the right one.

guys :) you say that paper gold is invested just 1-2 hundred years ago but you invest crypto currency which is invented just a few years ago. how do you explain that?

I understand that none of you have bitcoin in online wallets. all of you should have stored your cryptowealth offline :)

that's right. I trade gold and unlikely keep it more than a few months.

If you use to trade gold, in this case its better the paper gold. But most users thing about gold as an store of value to keep safe for large time and in this case physical gold is better.

Though I like shiny coins as much as a Meowth  :D I'd be a bit uncomfortable storing gold at home unless I can have a safe made. I understand the doubts with banks though. After all no one knows what could happen to banks. Heck, we can't even be sure if the gov't would go keep its promise of giving you the insured money should bank fail.


This. I watched somewhere that Europeans have been using some sort of notes so they don't have to carry gold during their travels but it really goes down to trust. As for the Chinese, they started using paper money mainly because they start to run out of metals. When large amounts of silver started flowing from the Americas, traded to China by the Spanish, they started to use silver for coinage again.

You know nothing about physical gold as it has heat absorption capability and can block all sorts of radiations and where there is treasure usually snakes are around is because gold can warm their blood, expensive electronics mostly are priced high for gold used in making them.
And of course when there is a war paper gold worth zero but from the dawn of civilization gold has won wars for nations.
Thousands of years fake religions used people's faith as a tool to get more gold from them, and btw gold is fused in less than a second when a star explodes, in fact all the elements heavier than helium are produced in fusion process in matter of seconds and also earth's core is 30% pure gold.

I understand your point of view, sounds paradoxical and maybe it is, what happens is that when a thing is disruptive, you do not have much time to stay thinking about this, similar to years or so,of  that way many people see a lot of potential more than paper gold, and is verified in the result of the last years, but yes the risk will always exist, on the contrary when you see that the value of paper over the years sometimes loses its full value sometimes you realize that it is perhaps the worst option  and guides some to other more attractive ways of investment. Maybe that's why some prefer to invest in crypto, I guess.

Comex is currently leveraged 542:1 on gold.

That means there are another 541 people who think they own the same oz of gold you do.

Soon or later this will end in tears.


If you want to trade in gold but not take physical delivery you could opt for an allocated account with a trusted company such as Perth Mint, Bullionvault or Goldline.  They all have independant audits so the gold they claim they hold for you is acutally there.

A good solution to this is Gold Money.  I buy a little with every paycheck.  1% fee in and out.  Can't beat it.

http://goldmoney.com/r/Eo9lgo

here we have safe in our banks where one can put their gold for saving but you will service charges on it. and their services charges too more therefore it become more expensive to save gong and then keep it in bank because of security issues. therefore i will always recommend investment and not saving in any form.

I think it is easier to do trading with paper gold, but somehow i prefer physical gold where i can touch and keep in any place i want, i feel more secure with physical gold, modern people now prefer storing their gold in paper gold because it is more efficient

This we know promises are broken every time when it comes to governments and business besides the persons holding hold do so in the hopes gold skyrockets and if it does there is not going to be enough gold to fulfill the promises the business gave to all those investors, so the ones holding physical gold will earn while those holding paper will lose everything.

If you're playing the gold market, I would think paper gold would be good enough.  You can get in and out quickly, and you don't have to worry about storing it, as you mentioned.  You're basically laying bets on the gold price, so if that's your plan you don't need to hold it.  Only goldbugs and hard-money enthusiasts insist on having physical metal.  I've heard that so many times, it's ridiculous.

Why does it matter what we think, anyway?  Are you happy with 'paper gold'?  If so, just stick with it and don't listen to anyone here.  Including me.

Paper gold means that you put it , save in bank or any other institutions and you have the paper for it.  It is better unless the holding authority scam or runs away with gold which is highly unlikely to happen.  If you have physical gold, there is chances of theft so its better to keep it under locks of banks.

This is where GoldMoney fits perfectly.  In and out quick.
My affiliate link.

http://goldmoney.com/r/Eo9lgo

But you are going to pay for that, don't you? What I worry more is that if the people like more to trade gold and are regular trader then it's much better to have this paper gold rather than having the physcial gold to trade because it is much harder to trade comparing with online.

Physical is better if you dont trust your banking system or gold dealer who gives you paper saying you own some gold stashed somewhere. When Greece was in trouble all banks were closed, so even if you had gold in their safe you couldnt easily get it. If you use it for short term trading then paper gold is better, cause its less likely you'll get robed, especially if you live in not so safe neighbourhood. Safest way to keep your physical gold is not talking about it. Only you should know how much you have, and where it is stashed.

Paper gold eh. I dont see anything wrong wirh that. But can you feel that you really own a gold? It is different with a physic gold. Try to hand that paper gold that you are saying to one of your sons or grandson if you have one. They wont care.
The look of the gold itself makes it wortg to buy it. You want to keep it and maybr make it your own baby. Just saying man.
I dont want a paper that just says I own part of that gold which is not on my hand.

Physical gold any day because I could test to see its authenticity and carats unlike paper gold, I can also feel it in my palms . It is malleable and ductile and also a heavy metal with a lot of uses and properties. Physical gold is not traded in futures market unlike paper gold.

I can tell you 100% that physical gold will still trade in future.dont think too much about future.digital world has grown rapidly and its great that we can make payment in fast manner yet physical gems still untouchable.

Given the choice, I would prefer paper gold over the physical gold because of some features of paper gold. If I take gold as an investment, then it is always better to buy paper gold because it can be traded in the market very easily without any extra expense. on the other hand, if you want to sell physical gold, you have to go to a gold merchant and he will deduct a good amount of fees to him, which will not just only eat in to your profit but you will end up paying out of your pocket.

Paper gold is free from such charges and can be traded easily. Even you can hold it in a demat account, so you don't actually have to carry a paper and it can be sold by just a click of mouse. That makes paper gold much more attractive than physical gold as an investment.

I am not that much interested in Gold per se, but if I ever look to buy Gold as an investment option, then I will at all times go for Gold in physical form. Reason being that I at all times want to own everything in full. In case of paper Gold, it's just a "worthless" reminder of you being able to trade/cash out the stated amount at any time. You have to trust the entity issuing this paper Gold to do what it promised you when you bought yourself into paper Gold. In my case, I only buy what I can own in full, promises are not part of that.

It depends on a person some wants physical gold because they want an assurance or what they want is what they are seeing and physical gold can actually convert to money because there are  lots of jewelry pawnshop everywhere.
While for others they prefer paper gold because its market is over 100 times that actually exists compare to physical gold.

I dont know why people would really bother to put gold or decide to have a paper gold since we all know that golds price would really vary on its weight because the more the heavier the more valuable it be and making it as a paper gold i think it would be complicated for me and would took time to implement because making 1kl gold into a 1 single paper gold isnt good on my own view if im the owner of it.I would like to feel its weight :)

I haven't really read into the laws surrounding the what seems to be the FDIC of golds in your country Turkey, but if that's true about having government insurance when you buy "paper" gold then buying that would be so much better than buying real solid gold. Don't get me wrong, I've said before on threads that I'd like to be able to hold what I'm investing in but if you can have insurance and a chance of theft being slim to none (unless government goes under) then you go with that option.


Would be a bit more efficient depending on situation when it comes to paper gold, imagine having to secure millions in gold if that's an investment of yours? Or hundreds of millions and so on, paper gold could easily be more effective when it comes to these simple examples that are probably real.

Why is it important to have physical gold?
Well paper gold means you trust the system you trust the broker...
Anyone with some brain can see the system isn't going well

Physical gold isn't for trading. It's an investment for the future.
Wanna trade? Go paper. Wanna keep something of value for a long time? Go physical gold!

This is interesting, and it may help to avoid further costs with storage and security, but I think it would be better to have some of that in physical gold and part of that in paper gold, since that way you would not have to rely entirely on a centralized institution to store your assets.

Save gold in bank is safer than keep it at home, even if each account guaranteed only up to $30K, at least we have than nothing such as if the gold disappear from our house. Everyone have their own decisions, you can not impose your opinion to others. Whether to keep it at home or save it in bank, but be ready if something happen to your precious gold.

For me physical gold is important only for the purpose of jewelry and not for any other purpose so I will not want it for any other thing like trade and in this way I do not like paper gold and if someone will ask me for that then I will say that no paper gold is not good but physical gold is better. That is the actual reason of the statements.

Both are same, you will get profit when the price rise but for safe I will choose physical gold even though it will take more time to get profit due there is any cut cost when you want to sell it.

Physical Gold has it's own benefit which paper Gold can not match. Like quick liquidity. If you possess gold at your home then in case of emergency you could readily liquidate gold and it is globally accepted.
* It is true that physical gold needs protection, and you're responsible for that. So you take all measures to protect it (insure it).
* Physical gold could be carried in form of jewelery as well.
* Purchasing Gold from GoldSmith could be pain in countries like India and customer could feel exploited.

Paper Gold solves problem of security. When big companies are offering paper gold they back up it as well.
* Paper gold is much better for investment purpose. easy to purchase and desolve as well.
*  you could access your paper gold via internet(from anywhere).
* You don't have to worry much if you have invested with reputed company.

I don’t like to wear gold ornaments but I do like gold prices so but obviously, paper gold is more comfortable for me to trade than psychical gold. I think both of the forms have their own risks and benefits like in paper gold the liquidity is faster than the psychical gold whereas you can wear psychical gold but you can’t do that in paper gold.

The whole "paper gold" thing is what cause the current fiat monster debt scenario of insane inflation, as soon as we went out of the gold pattern then we were fucked in the ass by those damn bureaucrats and their tricks. The banksters got rich and we got nothing.

It's time to take control of the money back with bitcoin. Fiat had its time, its time to now to evolve.

I think gold is a sure bet, indeed, it is stable. It is therefore very useful to protect its resources from financial crises.

Both of it has advantages and disadvantages like mentioned above which user should know and aware about that.
Depends on your purposes to purchase gold, whether to store it at home (backup plan, long term investment or jewelry)
Or purchase paper gold for trade purpose and safety way than put a huge amount of gold at home and the risk of robbery.
I prefer to purchase physical gold and save it at home in case of emergency, just in case for something I need.

Gold is reliable. But I will not claim that it is a 100% sure bet. Just because during the last financial crisis it performed well, we can't expect gold to remain stable during the next financial crisis. What if some central bank dumps all of its gold in to the market? The prices can go below $1,000 per oz.

There is no such thing as paper gold (anymore), so I don't even know what this thread is about?

I don't like paper gold, but with paper gold you don't have to test for any of that since it is not physical gold, I think physical gold is way better if you are in gold for the long term, but if you want to buy gold and then sell it in just a few weeks or months then paper gold seems like a better option.

Indeed why risk physical gold investment as it is not safe in current world. Also, digitalisation is increasing a way lot faster than any other era. Physical gold was past days challenge where Gold Rush was the only thing on peoples mind. Today we have moved to futuristic world which knows only about digital trades and the physical one. Keeping gold is good but not safe though. Having it in bonds safe with banks would be preferable and less chargeable. You can also trade it in few minutes in the market as physical gold may need to be tested before it gets sold. So you can see pros and cons about your question, and personally I would select paper gold. :D