Italy just figured out that the country doesn't fully control its gold

[DigitalCyberius]

Well, that's what you get when you decide to give up the sovereignty of your nation, and/or to put your assets into the hands of someone else, especially a central bank, and especially at that scale.

Have a good day,
The Cyberius team.

[CryptoBry]

No private keys, Not your coins!

Given that the national central banks are subordinated to the ECB, 2 Italians MPs asked the ECB on the legal status of gold reserves in the euro area states. Guess what? The ECB confirmed its authority!

"The ECB must approve any operation concerning the remaining reserves within the national central banks (...) as well as Member States' transactions with their foreign reserve balances above a certain amount"

So Italy may be the owner but they can't do whatever they want with!

I don't see any surprising element in that! Because that's how the European union is structured and every national bank is affiliated with ECB who is the whole and sole owner of the currency in Eurozone! And yes, I clap for the first comment you posted which nicely shows the entire scenario by adding a crypto perspective to it. That's one of the pain points for UK and that's whay they wanted to leave Euro zone to maintain control on their own wealth and didn't want to use that wealth to bail out poorer countries.

The Brexit has been very painful for the UK and there is no clear picture of how this can eventually affect their economy and that of the Eurozone. The decision to leave was based on the fact that it is losing its pivotal sovereignty which is at the heart and soul of a country. When you don't have a control with something you thought you own...the joke can be on you. And this is what Italy is finding out. As part of the European Union, they are now subordinates or under the people who are unelected based in Brussels.  

[Kakmakr]

A day will come when countries realize that most of the Gold in this world are not secured in vaults, but rather that the Gold has been sold to fund wars and preventing global economic collapse.    It is already rumoured that the supposed large Gold reserves in Fort Knox is gone! <Audits are not done and the US are very secretive about the Gold quantities that are supposed to be in that vault.> 

Gold prices are also controlled by large cartels, so a few super rich people or organizations are manipulating the value of Gold owners wealth. 

[Lucius]

Bank of Italy is not the same with the State? I mean this banks is not owned by the Government?

Interestingly, unlike most countries where sovereign gold is owned by the State but managed by the country’s central bank, the Italian gold is officially owned by Italy’s central bank, Banca d’Italia (Bank of Italy), and not owned by the Italian State.

As you can see Italy has a little different way how gold is managed, their central bank is key player when it comes to gold.


It is very interesting how this story is become actual in the political and public life of Italy. The government allegedly had the intention to sell part of gold reserves in order to prevent increase in value added tax, but problem is in who is control gold, and where this gold really is.

The Banca d’Italia furthermore claims that 1199.4 tonnes of the gold (or roughly half), is stored in the Bank’s building in Rome, with most of the other half stored in the vaults of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), and a small balance kept the Bank of England in London, and in an account of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in the vaults of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) in Berne, Switzerland. But without any documentary evidence or independent auditing or verification of any of its gold, especially the foreign held gold, these claims are impossible to verify.

This is not just a question of the sale of part of the gold reserves, but also where the gold really is. A really comic situation, you have something very valuable, you need money and you can not sell it because some politicians in the other country does not agree with that.

https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/ronan-manly/italys-gold-enters-the-political-fray-but-who-really-owns-it/

[LeGaulois]

Ah, you see the point now. Luckily there are a few countries in the EU still able to make whatever they want roughly speaking. Germany and France are 2 examples but there are surely some others. The main reason is that both countries have a law above the ECB and EU regulations. For how long no idea, but nowadays we're ruled by the EU and not our own country.

I know for a fact that there are several countries recently starting to worry about their gold/gold reserve. Some purchase in mass (Russia and China) and some either repatriate to be safe (Germany) or start to ask 'my gold is still here?". Remember me a story (don't know if it's true, I watched it in a documentary à la Alex Jones). The Queen of England had requested an audit concerning the gold of the Bank of England. It was so denied that she decided to go herself to The US. and check it out.

[stompix]

It's funny and a shame at the same time that a country boastfully owns gold for its reserves, only to know in the end that they don't fully have the rights to spend it or use it on any things they like or wish to since they need to ask permission first for their own property. I wonder what would be the reaction of other countries if they found out about this. To be fair though, everyone under the European Central Bank would have the same treatment, or would have the same process if they'd like to use that gold in reserves (CMIIW, thank you) so Italy is not alone on this ordeal.

No, it is not funny in that way.
The thing is that Italy used previously the gold just as we here use altcoins for collateral and now they want to sell it but not for paying their debts, just to cover expenses.

People are acting like what, how is this possible but they tend to forget that those rules were put in place a long time ago, the minimum reserve requirements, the debt to gdp ration, limits to expenses vs budget, a lot of those were known for years and countries agreed to those when they joined the EU.

They didn't care about it first because they weren't in trouble.
Now they act like somebody who has bought a phone with a one year warranty that broke one month after it was over, cursing and enranged why he has no two years warranty like the most expensive ones

[kryptqnick]

It's disappointing to know that gold in the said country is manipulated and that you have to comply and needs approval from the government before it works. That's the reason why we have to be grateful that despite both crypto and gold, we're still having financial freedom at some point.

Well, in case of the EU it's understandable. Italy benefits from the stability of Euro, which is regulated by the EU. If separate countries had the right to do whatever they want with their gold, it could seriously complicate things with keeping the prices and money value under control, and it would be a threat not only to that country, but to all others that use the same currency.
If Italy doesn't like it, it can always go for Itexit
With crypto we indeed have financial freedom, but it also has associated risks. Extreme volatility, for instance, truly makes it difficult to use cryptos as money.

[Umkar]

The parallel between the gold reserves of the central banks of European countries and cryptocurrencies is well drawn. It is really absurd when the private key of your wallet lies with a stranger and without his permission you cannot manage your funds. Apparently, therefore, cryptocurrencies so quickly conquer the world.

[Supercrypt]

That is basically renting someones golds. That is literally the type of work you do when you invest your money into a bank and get interest in return, you give your money to the bank, they guarantee you a return and you just leave it that them. Afterwards banks can do whatever they want with that money, they can loan to someone else, they can invest into stocks they can do whatever they want.

Same goes for insurance companies too, you give them money so you get insured but in the end they have the money so as long as you do not need insurance for something they can use it however they want. This is not that much of a big deal, it happens all the time in regular peoples lives like the ones I mentioned so a country doing the same is just fine in my own opinion.

[TheCoinGrabber]

So you are telling me it's no different from private individuals "owning" gold but cannot simply withdraw it whenever they want? 

Recently we keep hearing about countries fretting about their gold reserves. You think they're preparing for a possibility of the gold standard returning?

Bank of Italy is not the same with the State? I mean this banks is not owned by the Government?

Maybe the situation is like with the Federal Reserve in the US?

One day most of the average joes using banks as custodian for their Gold will figure out the exact same thing.

Bitcoin gets rid of the dependence on these custodians, but people as always need to find out the hard way why Bitcoin is such a powerful tool. Losing money has always been the most effective way to get people to understand how toxic banks and governments are. Better late than never I guess.

It's only a matter of time before governments will allocate a portion of their freshly printed fake money to Bitcoin in order to for once actually own sound and useful money.

All those long lines at the bank when Greece declared bankruptcy should have been a wake up call to people living in the EU. We only own the money that we have access to. Banks can always cut your access to your money that they are "keeping".

[Tylev]

I do not see anything unusual. Italy is a member of the European Union, in which there are common economic interests and obligations, and they follow from the fact that they use the single currency - the euro. It would be the opposite, surprising if Italy used the euro and, moreover, also enjoyed the full amount of its gold and currency reserves. Part of the gold reserves of each country - a member of the European Union must reserve under the coverage of the euro. This is quite logical.

[timerland]

Given that the national central banks are subordinated to the ECB, 2 Italians MPs asked the ECB on the legal status of gold reserves in the euro area states. Guess what? The ECB confirmed its authority!

What's the point of holding any gold reserve at all then?

If your central bank needs the gold reserve to maintain monetary policy in some sort of extreme black swan market event, if you still need the approval of ECB, wouldn't it be a bit redundant given that there is a risk that there may be delays as to approving the gold transaction/or being entirely rejected?

Again, sovereignty is extremely important when it comes to reserves in my opinion. That's a part of the reason why I believe BTC used in nation's reserves will be more common in the future, since you simply don't need to outsource the storage to another country.

[CryptoBry]

Given that the national central banks are subordinated to the ECB, 2 Italians MPs asked the ECB on the legal status of gold reserves in the euro area states. Guess what? The ECB confirmed its authority!

What's the point of holding any gold reserve at all then? If your central bank needs the gold reserve to maintain monetary policy in some sort of extreme black swan market event, if you still need the approval of ECB, wouldn't it be a bit redundant given that there is a risk that there may be delays as to approving the gold transaction/or being entirely rejected? Again, sovereignty is extremely important when it comes to reserves in my opinion. That's a part of the reason why I believe BTC used in nation's reserves will be more common in the future, since you simply don't need to outsource the storage to another country.

Nations like Italy now under the auspices of the EU have lost their own sovereignty when they joined the economic block thinking that they would be benefited by such a big cluster of nations. Of course, they get to participate in the opening of new markets for their products and services but now we know the many sacrifices required of these countries. At the end, only Germany would bloom with the EU project. Let's hope that Italy will realize soon of the folly of being a part of this block.

[davis196]

No private keys, Not your coins!

Given that the national central banks are subordinated to the ECB, 2 Italians MPs asked the ECB on the legal status of gold reserves in the euro area states. Guess what? The ECB confirmed its authority!

"The ECB must approve any operation concerning the remaining reserves within the national central banks (...) as well as Member States' transactions with their foreign reserve balances above a certain amount"

So Italy may be the owner but they can't do whatever they want with!

The Italian central bank (and every central bank of an EU country that had accepted the euro as a national currency) had delegated a part of it's authority to the European Central bank.
I don't see anything surprising that the ECB has power over the Italian banks.

[Sithara007]

A number of countries are storing their gold reserves in the United States. For example, half of the German gold reserves (approx. 1700 tonnes) are stored in the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, while another 20% or so is located in London. Last year Turkey pulled out 220 tonnes of gold reserves from the United States. I don't know how much is remaining. 

[LoyceV]

So what this really means is that they implemented and approved laws, and apparently nobody until now knew that meant giving more control power to ECB?

[Lucius]

It would be stupid to believe no one was aware of all the powers ECB have over EU members financial system. Within the EU there are people who place the interests of the Union at first, although some decisions do not make sense for the internal affairs of individual countries. In this case some Italian politicians have suggested selling a smaller amount of gold, but they open pandora's box from which some very illogical things came out.

ECB confirm gold can not be sold, it is not entirely clear who owns the gold (state or Italian Cental Bank), and they even can not say how much gold they have and where exactly the specified amount is stored.

[pereira4]

The situation in Venezuela with the UK refusing to repatriate Venezuelan gold also highlights the need for nations to have full control over their money. Bitcoin has advantages over gold in that it does not require physical storage and can be possessed by nations very easily. The key is having multiple highly-trusted people involved with strict oversight. I am not sure how this will be managed, but I imagine it will be similar to how nations manage nuclear codes or military secrets.

Water is wet. Countries have never controlled their own gold, it's a much more complex array of variables which involve game theory that collides with other countries and their jurisdictions. It's not easy to deal with gold when you are storing it overseas.

Similar to Bitcoin, if the gold is not sitting on your own banks, it's not yours. Maduro should have known better and not store it overseas.

One could argue that Bitcoin is a better store of value than gold, but it would also have problems. It's a click away from someone wanting to betray you. It has it's pros and cons. But all things considered, Bitcoin wins the match.

[metalglowd]

A day will come when countries realize that most of the Gold in this world are not secured in vaults, but rather that the Gold has been sold to fund wars and preventing global economic collapse.    It is already rumoured that the supposed large Gold reserves in Fort Knox is gone! <Audits are not done and the US are very secretive about the Gold quantities that are supposed to be in that vault.> 

Gold prices are also controlled by large cartels, so a few super rich people or organizations are manipulating the value of Gold owners wealth. 

In my opinion this only applies to some countries, such as poor and developing countries, because the average country needs funds and indeed they may have natural resources but not on the other side, which ends up in debt to other countries. then the debt that keeps rising plus interest makes the country have to pay with their gold.
Mostly large cartels only control 1:3 of the gold in their country.

[leonair]

If Italy is not the owner of Italy's gold then who? is it the USA, World Bank or the Earth itself but it's the European Central Bank 

The only thing that I can see why ECB claiming its authority to Italy's Gold is they look it as a primary collateral to Italy's debt so as soon as they pay it then they can do whatever they want to their own golds.