Gold: The talisman of fear —Goldfinger, 1959
In Ian Fleming’s novel Goldfinger Colonel Smithers of the Bank of England explains to James Bond that gold is a near universal currency. Most anywhere on the planet, with a few discrete inquiries, gold can be exchanged for virtually any item or service.
Back then gold backed national currencies, and the Breton Woods Agreement controlled most international commerce, set the United States dollar up as the world’s master currency and pegged gold at $35 an ounce. That deal collapsed.
Not long ago the price of gold exceeded $5,000 an ounce (now it’s around $4,700), compared to about $2,000 an ounce five years ago [COMEX].
Yet, gold is something tangible. You can feel it, carry it.
Increasingly, great value has attached to Crypto Currencies. Basically, crypto is just mathematical formulas, dreams and promises. Crypto also stands as the talisman of greed.
The creation of crypto traces back to 1995 when a few bright guys put together blockchain and other high math to create symbolic value out of digital records.
This scared people, with the National Security Agency in 1996 publishing a paper (reprinted in law publications among others) warning of the dangers of Anonymous Electronic Cash.
The key word is anonymous. The April 26, 2026 New York Times ran a multi-page front section piece tracing down the creation and creator of bitcoin, the most successful commonly available crypto. Even before publication folks praised the article – and said it drew the wrong conclusions, named the wrong ‘founder’ as well as displaying an anti-crypto bias.
Meanwhile, bitcoin is worth billions in digital untraceable value.
Not all crypto works. $TRUMP crypto soared to better than $70.00 a unit. Today, well, $2.55 gets the same amount. [crypto.com]
So, who makes crypto work? Rich people who want to get richer but want to hide their wealth. Dealing is crypto is very speculative. Many digital currencies have failed and more will undoubtedly self destruct.
Still, the lure of crypto encourages many greedy people to take the chance.
The problem? At some point real currency has to trade hands to buy or create crypto: those billions upon billions in digital currency represent money not going into stocks, real estate, paychecks – or taxes!
In effect, we all help subsize the greed.
Glenn Koenen