As J.P. Morgan stated in his testimony before Congress in 1912, “Gold is money. Everything else is credit.”
Land isn't bad, but it certainly isn't money, because land isn't fungible.
To say that owning physical gold is akin to fiat is laughable, and I would have to seriously doubt the intent and moral fabric of anyone who would make such an obviously false claim.
That said, if you don't physically hold it, you don't actually own it - even if you pay vault fees. Google this fact: When you store your gold in an IRA or even when you store it with a bank, and they charge you bank fees for holding on to it for you, the banks still just sell the gold out, continue to charge you vault fees while investing the exchanged money with the intent to just buy the gold back later when you tell them you want to take delivery. JP Morgan was found to be doing this a few years ago. When gold hits 20k, the banks won't have the ability to buy it back. It would bankrupt them. You will get nothing when you ask for delivery.
Physical gold is money. It certainly isn't fiat.
How is the value derived though? I agree with the point that actually holding it is owning it nothing less, but its worth is related to the worth associated with it in society as a valued commodity.
In the modern world, it takes, on average, 31 metric tons of gold ore to produce just one troy ounce of pure gold.
The labor and energy that goes into producing that ounce gives gold a market floor. If the market price for gold ever dips below the cost to produce it, people simply stop producing it until that market price rises above the cost to produce it. This is precisely why gold isn't fiat.
Fiat is fake because there is no expense or labor involved in producing fiat.
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