Gold has a perception of wealth but history makes clear what it actually is. For example, the hordes of gold the Spanish plundered from the Americas directly contributed to the bankruptcy of the monarchy.[1] Because they hadn't actually seized/mined "wealth" - they'd simply inflated their currency away without any commensurate expansion in productivity.

People who believe that it would be "easy" to trade gold for other goods have also clearly never tried - since the entire modern banking system came into existence on the basis of the sheer difficulty of directly trading gold for other goods. No one knows how to value gold, they don't know what it's worth other then a brick is probably a lot. If they could, then the fake jewellery scam wouldn't be as successful as it is[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_revolution

[2] https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/just-say-no-walk-away-fake-...