From my naive position it’s obvious that the reason for the significance of gold is that it’s a real, physical, testable substance which has a relatively fixed total mass in the world.  Ie. one ounce of gold relative to the total amount of gold remains constant.  Regardless of demand or what value a manipulated market puts on gold, one ounce of gold relative to the total mass of gold is constant.  Gold shouldn’t be priced in $ or £ or Euros, $ and £ and Euros should be priced in ozt gold.  The value of gold isn’t in it’s demand, it’s in stability as a reference which can’t be disturbed by imagination.  A proportion of gold remains a proportion of gold no matter how much of a panic anyone is in.  Unlike fiat money .. gold you have can be tested by scientific instruments.

But, this clear advantage of real physical gold vanishes instantly if you accept a promise of gold.  You replace something that can be tested with an article of faith .. an essentially different thing entirely.  A promise of gold isn’t gold.  It’s a promise.  It’s no better than the piece of paper it’s written on.