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Fort Knox has an entire military base to secure it. That alone would use up a good chunk of your few hundred million dollar budget. I think you are vastly und

Fort Knox has an entire military base to secure it. That alone would use up a good chunk of your few hundred million dollar budget. I think you are vastly underestimating the cost in supporting our current financial system.

paulgb 8y ago
These have to do with storing something of value, they aren't inherent to gold. People are already storing Bitcoin keys in physical vaults: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-09/bunkers-for-the-wealthy-are-said-to-hoard-10-billion-of-bitcoin https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-09/bunkers-f...
- slededit 8y ago
  The global financial system is interconnected. Fast transactions can happen because counter party risk is removed by a government backstop. In effect you can't have Visa without a "risk free" store of value. Vaults such as Fort Knox are a part of that system. In the case of bitcoin they aren't inherently necessary to the function of the system, although with the risk of hacks you can make the case for them.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Fort Knox has an entire military base to secure it Fort Knox has basically nothing to do with the modern U.S. dollar financial system.
- slededit 8y ago
  You don't consider a country's reserve assets to be a factor in their monetary system? An interesting way to see the world.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > You don't consider a country's reserve assets to be a factor in their monetary system? The U.S. dollar isn't backed by gold. The total value of the gold at Fort Knox, about $100 billion, is negligible [1] and does not appear on the Federal Reserve's balance sheet [2]. It is mostly an anachronism from the eras of the gold standard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bullion_Depository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bullion_Deposito... [2] https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_fedsbalancesheet.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_fedsbalanc...

paulgb 8y ago

These have to do with storing something of value, they aren't inherent to gold. People are already storing Bitcoin keys in physical vaults: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-09/bunkers-for-the-wealthy-are-said-to-hoard-10-billion-of-bitcoin https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-09/bunkers-f...

slededit 8y ago
The global financial system is interconnected. Fast transactions can happen because counter party risk is removed by a government backstop. In effect you can't have Visa without a "risk free" store of value. Vaults such as Fort Knox are a part of that system. In the case of bitcoin they aren't inherently necessary to the function of the system, although with the risk of hacks you can make the case for them.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> Fort Knox has an entire military base to secure it Fort Knox has basically nothing to do with the modern U.S. dollar financial system.

slededit 8y ago
You don't consider a country's reserve assets to be a factor in their monetary system? An interesting way to see the world.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > You don't consider a country's reserve assets to be a factor in their monetary system? The U.S. dollar isn't backed by gold. The total value of the gold at Fort Knox, about $100 billion, is negligible [1] and does not appear on the Federal Reserve's balance sheet [2]. It is mostly an anachronism from the eras of the gold standard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bullion_Depository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bullion_Deposito... [2] https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_fedsbalancesheet.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_fedsbalanc...