Why has the world agreed that an ounce of gold is worth 50 U.S. dollars?

[zimmah]

You know, as silly as this topic was I realized something from it. 
 
When Nixon broke the dollar/gold link it didn't just hurt the dollar's value, it also hurt gold's. 
 
Such will be the fate with the dollar/oil link.

The gold market is heavily manipulated because many people have claims on gold (in other words, a piece of paper saying they own a certain amount of gold) but they don't actualy physically have the gold.

about 200 people have a claim to the same physical piece of gold.

Now what happens if they all claim their piece of gold at once (a run on the banks?) they will run out of gold, and the gold claims become worthless (but the gold itself will be more valueable than ever).

If you own gold, store it at home, don't get scammed, don't store it in a vault, don't let anyone else store it for you, get a good safe, store it at your own home.

It's just like having bitcoin, if you don't own the key, you don't own the bitcoin.

[UserVVIP]

Just wait for gold to become rare. Then stick it to them.

[americanpegasus]

It's just like having bitcoin, if you don't own the key, you don't own the bitcoin.

 
 
In time paper bitcoin will be a thing too (it already is a thing). 
 
I'm sure the world will eventually see 75 million 'paper' bitcoins being in circulation.

[Amph]

Just wait for gold to become rare. Then stick it to them.

there are new gold discover each day/week/month, how the hell it can beocme rare, it's the opposite, there will be always more gold, and the value will not increase much

not to mention that other planets may be full of gold, and just because we cannot discover them for now, it does not mean anything

[Q7]

Well I'm don't have a direct answer for it but i was told the face value was affixed some time ago more like a benchmark and it stays until today even though when inflation has picked up considerably. Whatever it is, regardless what the numbers appear I'm sure people will know how to judge and give a value to it. It's the actual value that is important not the face value. Face value is just the worth assigned by the government to denominate a coin's price as a form of legal tender and that's all to it.

[zimmah]

Just wait for gold to become rare. Then stick it to them.

I wonder how it will happen when people realize they are getting scammed.

I'm assuming that once the gold price can no longer be kept artificially low and it begins to climb, many people want to claim their gold to sell it.

Obviously, since 200 people have a claim on the same piece of gold, only 1 out of 199 can redeem it, but the other 199 still have their claims.

So I think the vaultkeepers will just attempt to buy the gold of their hand with worthless paper money. They will probably offer a high price too, so the persons "owning" the gold (the gold claim, i mean), will think they get a good deal. While in reality they are getting scammed.

Sure, getting $10000 and ounce might seem like a good deal, but when all those gold claims have been resolved, and all that gold is now the legal property of the vaultkeeper (in other worths the vaultkeepers have now cornered the market) they can now set the new price to $500,000 per ounce and you will never be able to afford an ounce of gold ever again.

However, if you just hold on to our claim refusing to sell, you might not ever see your gold again, since if enough people do this, the vault will become insolvent, claim bankruptcy, and you won't see anything at all.

That's why it is important if you buy gold, you safekeep it yourself.

[zimmah]

It's just like having bitcoin, if you don't own the key, you don't own the bitcoin.

 
  
In time paper bitcoin will be a thing too (it already is a thing).  
  
I'm sure the world will eventually see 75 million 'paper' bitcoins being in circulation.

yes, that's why it's important to educate people that you do not own a bitcoin unless you hold the private key yourself.

Even multisig is fine, as long as you are in control.

Don't let bitcoin fall victim to the fiat money scam.

Just wait for gold to become rare. Then stick it to them.

there are new gold discover each day/week/month, how the hell it can beocme rare, it's the opposite, there will be always more gold, and the value will not increase much

not to mention that other planets may be full of gold, and just because we cannot discover them for now, it does not mean anything

it costs more money to mine the gold than it brings up to sell it.

do you even know how most of current gold is extracted?

they literally sift through metric tons of dirt to extract a few grams of gold in a process called strip mining.

[jaysabi]

I am wondering why has the world agreed that an ounce of gold is worth 50 U.S. dollars?
Even in other currencies this price stamped on the one ounce gold coin holds true. Like the chinese panda, 500 yuan which is basically, approximately 50 USD. And the silver ounce is worth 5 USD... or similare amounts in other currencies... if you stack, you know this... it's like price hasn't moved since the 1940's... what do the banks and governments know that we don't? Are they planning to confiscate it all for that amount for each coin?

Or would they just confiscate the gold and let us peasants keep our silver...?

The world hasn't decided that an ounce of gold is worth $50. A gold ounce currently trades over $1100, and that is what the world has decided an ounce of gold is worth currently. You can stamp whatever denomination you want on a one-ounce gold coin and it will not affect the worth of the coin, which is based on the amount of gold in it, not the denomination stamped on it.

[thejaytiesto]

Gold is insanely more costly to mine than Bitcoin. No matter how far you go into the future, Bitcoin will always be more convenient, and less aggressive with environment. Bitcoin will never require massive amounts of terraforming and destruction of land to try to pick some small amounts of the thing.