Gold forgery crisis demonstrates the need for Bitcoin

A forgery crisis is disrupting the global gold industry, reported.

Unlike 'fake' gold bars, which are made with cheaper metals plated with gold, these forgeries are made with pure gold and instead pirate the branding of bars from reputable mints.

These counterfeit bars allow gold from conflict zones and sanctioned countries, such as Iran and North Korea, to trade at the premium of 'clean' gold.

"It's a wonderful way of laundering conflict gold. The gold is genuine, but it's not ethically sourced They look completely genuine, they assay correctly, and they weigh correctly as well," said.

"This is such a big problem because it's very costly to reverify gold at each step, so gold relies on a trusted supply chain. Now the integrity of the supply chain is in question," said.

Made it illegal to hoard gold coins, bullion, and certificates in the U.S. Tons of gold were coercively 'bought-back' from the public.

"Bitcoin provides auditability guarantees that are incomparably better than those provided by gold, doing away with the need for a trusted supply chain, costly overhead for storage, or costly inbound verification."

Tainted gold is not fungible with 'clean,' verified gold.

JP Morgan's response to the gold situation could foreshadow what may happen next in Bitcoin.

Like gold, Bitcoin can aid people in "Opting-out." of the traditional financial system and can even allow citizens to subvert a country's monetary controls.