Have you tried using gold now? Getting it for spot is difficult, trading it for spot is difficult, verifying it’s authenticity is difficult without expensive equipment, and most of it is just purchased from governments who have spent the last 5000 years fooling people into trading it in for worthless (since the 70s, arguably earlier) coupons.

I used to believe in precious metals as a store of value but they have so many issues, and all of the issues are only going to get worse. You only need to get scammed once to lose faith in it, and if the only trusted sources of precious metals are businesses/governments it’s next to useless for p2p.

The most affordable way to verify gold, an XRF, said this bar was real. What you see in there is tungsten. As the price of gold rises in fiat terms, creating fakes because more cost effective.