Money that Must Be “Redeemed” for Something Else is Not Really Money

The Founders specified that Gold and Silver are money. Why? Because they do not have to be redeemed for something else to be valued as money.

All cryptos and all digital currencies, and all US fiat money is not real money. You can get two pizzas for it. People will trade anything for anything these days. Meta is willing to trade you furnishing for your house in cartoon land in exchange for cash on the barrelhead, in this world, right now.

US 10,176,661 B2 describes the authentication technology behind Paper Bullion Bank Bill, which is real money, not because it looks like a bank bill, not because it is a bank bill, but because it has gold in the paper. So, if you have a Paper Bullion Bank Bill, you’ve got your Gold in your hand. No redeeming required. Burn off the paper, and your Gold is that small yellow bead at the bottom of the crucible. If you have no match, bring the bill to a participating bank and the teller will give you a Gold round for it. It’s an even trade 10 grams of Gold for 10 grams of Gold.

All the digitals, cryptos and fiats entail counter-party risk. With US fiats the main risk is that your dollar may be worth a dime next year, or a penny. With cryptos, the fad could end, or you could outgrow your smartphone, and not be able to find the buttons to push, much less push the right ones, and you depend on the internet, the electric grid, and the cell phone G5 towers. The digitals will abide, but somewhere, there must be something of value on which they are based. That could be lost, stolen, burn down, or be flooded away. Digitals, based on thin air, and like cryptos and fiats. But even if they are based on something of value, whatever it is, is not in your hand, so you still have counter-party risk.

Gold coins are not self-certifying. They do not cuppolate themselves. They do not come with XRF readouts telling you what metal is in the coin and to what purity.

Paper Bullion Bank Bills are authenticated by machines the bank trusts to tell a real bill from a fake. The North Koreans took about 10 years to make fake $100 bills that are so good they must be sent to the US Treasury in Washington to know for sure if they are real or fake.

The authentication we use is called Photon-DSP because it is based partly on photons and partly on Digital signal Processing. You must get the photons right, the file number right, and the snippets right to make a bill that will pass muster. It’s actually easier to get the photons right than it is to get the snippets right. Even so, you will spend many billions of dollars just to get the photons right for one Paper Bullion Bank Bill. So the crime is not worth doing. Even if your photons are right, the bill will not be rated “authentic” unless the snippets are also right.

The day will come when people will want money that really is money. They are already stacking Gold and Silver coins. Which are not self-authenticating. And where the “grading services” cannot be relied on. You can rely on the US Mint, or the Royal Mint of Canada to sell you real Gold and Silver coins. They are not easily tradable or redeemble. You can get your money back out of them most of the time, but not in the last year or two.

Paper Bullion Bank Bill is authenticated in the bank, and you can have a gold round, or credit, or paper money whatever you like. The London Gold Fix for that day is used to decide what your 10 grams banknote is worth in other forms of exchange.

So far, the day has not come. No bank has bought my patent or issued my bank bills. What’s it going to take? I don’t know — possibly another Great Depression. Gold, by the way, will not protect you from a Great Depression. Or a run on the stocks. Or a run on the banks. Or, general panic, riot, and murder in the streets (return to barbarism). But if you have Gold, you will have some buying power, somewhere (Switzerland, UK, Canada, Australia, India, Germany, UAE, for example). Some buying power somewhere means you are a survivor, if you can get to an airport.

We are very close to a Law of the Jungle environment. Worried as we are about green wars in the sky, we have failed to see the streets right in front of our faces. We dream about the sky and how to save it. I suggest sauve qui peu.