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Comment by Scoundreller | Hacker News Reader

Iunno, if i were a billionaire, the idea of having $50m under nobody’s control but my own that I can take anywhere, anytime, doesn’t exist anywhere else.

I can’t do that with gold. Bank deposits are always available until they aren’t. But Coinbase can’t do this either.

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And why would someone put $50m into a highly volatile, unchecked tech, where mediators are mostly known because of their security problems and breaches?

1. Because you can afford to lose it.

2. There’s a chance (however small) that you could lose the other $950m, but keep some of this other $50m.

It's written in the post you are answering to: "Because it's under nobody’s control but my own that I can take anywhere, anytime".

Edit: I calculated this wrong, please ignore this comment

unless you have to cross a border with it?

Let us know how you get it through airport security.

>Let us know how you get it through airport security.

How you get it through what now? Private aircraft don't deal with that. GP did specify "billionaire", and at that level at least fractional ownership in private long distance transportation is not a reach either.

The point is that transporting large amounts of money that can be physically confiscated is a problem, even if it somehow fit into a suitcase.

Debating the logistics of potentially being able to evade some of those difficulties by having even larger sums of money (to afford private airliners or private security, even in times of unrest) and accepting larger risks misses the point.

I have carried several kilograms of gold through TSA screening checkpoints a half dozen times. I know that GP pre-edit was talking about $50mm but it is practically quite straightforward and entirely legal to fly domestically in the US with $0.5-1mm in gold. The risk of civil asset forfeiture is another matter but in 6-8 times I have never personally felt at risk from such.

Presumably I won’t exchange it all at once, so now i’ll need a mix of coins and bars, taking up more volume.

The billionaire looking for security would already have a cache of stone and gold, but would appreciate other new forms of diversification.

You're off by more than an order of magnitude. $50 million is 3,382 lbs (1534 kg, 1.6 US tons) of gold at current prices.

You're right; I was calculating based on the per-troy-ounce price, thinking it was the per-gram price. Thanks for pointing out my mistake.

Your point is still valid: it’s difficult to carry enough gold on your back to survive the rest of your life in the comfort that you’re used to.

I smirk whenever I walk past the poster in the international jetways at SFO regarding it being a no no to leave the country with more than $10K.

You misread those posters. It's fine to come in/out with more than $10k. You're required to declare it.

you're missing the obvious methods, used by the wealthy. and it has the single hallmark, of being the preferred methods - as it is propped by other rich people, also evading taxes.

;)

cryptocurrency, is about the pump-and-dump.

Right, that's money laundering.

Having money you control is not money laundering.

Money laundering is when you launder money. Exclusive access to your own money is called financial sovereignty.

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