I don't see much problem with it (other than a perhaps over hyped paranoia of how powerful governments are at manipulating commodity prices). You prefer gold and silver. They are decent and historically fairly stable. A pretty safe investment. I do not discourage buying gold or silver. I was actually looking at some gold websites to see if that could be a "like-kind" transfer of my bitcoins if the price skyrockets in bubble fashion and I want to move out for a few months without tax implications.
Just out of curiosity, how would you do that swap from Bitcoin to Gold without it being a taxable event?
However, how would I sell my gold back for bitcoins? Where would I store my gold? How can I move it to a new country?
As time has gone on I have realized that we spend a lot of money on protecting our property. We pay police, state governments, national armies to protect our property. Gold requires spending money either through taxes spent on a safe place to live where you can store your gold. It is a constant cost to keep people from taking your wealth.
Bitcoin does not have this cost. No government is required to protect my string of digits and letters. I can hold my wealth without needing a safe, home security system, local police department, national military, etc.
Maybe I can help you with that: Safes are probably one of the unsafest ways to store wealth as they are not really hidden just merely somewhat "protected". Gold can be melted and hidden as if it were some ordinary hosehold item. Also, and as you probably prefer to deal with the original bars my suggestion would be to bury them on your own home. I mean bury in a way that, even if you are forced to disclose where it is at point of gun it will take some time, tools, and a hell lot of noise to unbury (you need neighbours for this to be of any use). That's something you could also do with with other valuable items. You need a home and also you would be leaving it behind on your travels... nothing is perfect.
For some of my bitcoins I recently purchased some crypto-steel and stored some bitcoins on those. I just moved from Afghanistan to Korea spending a few weeks in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and French Polynesia. By moving, that meant bringing my crypto-steel with me (not trusting it to some post office). So here I am traveling with these metal squares through various security. I spent about 15 minutes in Dubai trying to explain my crypto-steel to security (I had them wrapped in metalic tape to ensure nobody tampered with them). I finally had to unwrap one enough to show what was inside (I also had full chemical gear so that was part of the inquisition as well....long story). I ended up checking my bag in with the crypto-steel from there on out and was paranoid every minute that they were not in my possession. Every hotel I went to had to have a safe. I ended up in one hotel without a safe and I only left briefly to eat. I ended up using a bus instead of going on airplanes when I traveled due to the difficulty. Flying from Vietnam to French Polynesia I decided to keep the crypto-steel with me to avoid the worry I had before. I had to explain to a Vietnamese security guard what they were, I used pictures on my phone and was ok after 5 minutes (I was surprised when he said "oh, Bitcoin!").
Please tell me you have backups of your cryptosteels and it is not that if they lose, destroy or otherwise take it apart you won't lose access to your bitcoins.
I I think it is very funny that you not only are passing cryptosteels on the x-rays... but, COVERED WITH METALIC TAPE?? That's probably the most suspicious item you can carry on except maybe for a GUN or a pack of real explosives lol
Also, I have always worried if they could consider that carrying bitcoins in international flights is something that should be declared or not. Probably not, but...
If I had as much money as I have in bitcoins, in gold I would be carrying around 100lbs(may be way off) in gold from country to country. I can't imagine being mobile with gold.
That's a hell lot of gold, around 2.5mill$ in value. Exactly the same ammount that this guy tried to cross borders with:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-gold-idUSBRE85H1Q920120618If I had nowhere near that amount in Bitcoins I would start diversifiying *ASAP*. Real state, gold, whatever.... but don't put all your eggs on the same basket.
Diversification is key to any long term sucessful wealth.