People without access to banks wear their wealth on them. That seems super risky but you see it every day on the street. I suppose they have no alternative.
I have seen in photos that when my parents married my mother was draped in gold, which she never wore again. As a kid I once was with her when she visited her safety deposit box and I picked up one of the bangles which immediately bent out of circularity. It wasn't designed to be worn, or at least to be worn once, very carefully.
Jewelry stores in the US don't seem to sell by weight. I remember jewelry stores always pulling out the scale and calculator to tell you the price -- it must have changed every day.
Gold as an asset reminds me of those NASDAQ-listed companies that assert they will never declare a dividend. Any intrinsic value their stock might have is simply the belief that someday, somebody else will buy it.
Consider: Any value my money has is simply the belief that someday, someone else will accept it in exchange for something else.
Yes of course but cash is quite liquid while a share is not. In other words, that dollar will be accepted by the butcher, baker, or cabinet maker while demand for that share of coinbase fluctuates wildly.
Furthermore, it's non-industrial value doesn't derive from its industrial use: if industry could switch to something else overnight (like fillings did), gold would still be a value store.