> No surprise there. So it was their wealth, not gold per se, that made their move safer and restarting easier.

If you're wealthy but cannot easily carry said wealth with you across borders or conflict lines or hide it from a kleptocratic Government then there's not that much that you can do.

Case in point, the high middle classes from my Eastern-European country, who after WW2 were wiped clean by the Government in just a couple of years, the result of industry and real estate nationalizations, combined with a forced revaluation of paper money. Holding gold could have protected one against all this, at least partially.

And, how were wealthy able to carry their wealth with them? Primarily it was gold (compact and valuable), easier to carry. Look into history of Gold and you will learn much more about why and how Gold became the medium of exchange. Do you think anyone going to care about USD or Euro as medium of exchange during bad times?

Hey now. Gold is useful as an electrical connector, as a dye, as an EM reflector, in dentistry and electron microscopy... gold has lots of uses!

Out of all the naturally occurring elements, proactinium probably takes the "most useless" prize - it's used by scientists doing radiometric dating. And it's both toxic and radioactive.