Gold has stood the test of time as money. It has a number of qualities that make it ideal money, including the fact that it is not a promise or a debt. From James Turk at mises.org:
“The Earth speaks to us through the elements of nature. In every natural thing, we can find a hidden, powerful message.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every natural element with which the earth has been endowed has a usefulness—a purpose. If we listen to gold, its message is loud and clear—gold is money. To serve as natural money is gold’s highest purpose.
The advance of civilization demonstrates that nature throughout the ages, to our good fortune, has provided everything humanity needs to progress, including money. Few today, however, understand money as it has existed from prehistory and as it was perceived up until the dawn of the twentieth century. Since the commencement of the First World War in 1914, time-honored principles have been abandoned. Humanity has become enthralled with money substitutes like national currencies and, more recently, cryptocurrencies circulating in place of money, and people have subsequently lost sight of natural money itself.
