Much like Ethereum, gold has an actual use post discovery/creation but your origami crane does not (outside of artistic value and testing for replicants) - GP did not go into the details, but they chose an appropriate analogy - origami cranes, not so much. Fun trivia: NASA uses a bunch of gold https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff1997/hm2.html

Value density is the differentiator. The amount of work required to produce a single ounce of gold is many orders of magnitude greater than the ancillary costs of storing or transporting that ounce.