Why Gold?

Here's something surprising. Cultures that never met each other — ancient Egypt, the Aztec Empire, old China — all landed on the same thing as money. They all chose gold.

That wasn't luck. It was logic.

Gold won because it fit every rule of good money. It doesn't rust or rot, so a gold coin can sit buried for a thousand years and still look the same. You can cut it into smaller pieces without losing value. It's rare, so you can't just find more when you need it. And every piece of gold is the same as every other piece.

But here's the most important reason. The supply of gold grows very slowly — miners add only about 1% or 2% more each year. So gold held its value over long stretches of time. People could save in gold and trust that, years later, it would still buy roughly the same things.

Now compare that with paper money. A government can print a huge amount of it almost overnight. Nobody can dig up that much new gold overnight. Gold's supply is limited by nature, not by a promise — and that was its real strength.

For thousands of years, gold worked. Then, in the 20th century, governments changed the rules.

Tomorrow: what makes money "good" money? A simple six-part test.