A monetary gold transfer from London to Switzerland, which took place in 2015 has failed to complete to date. According to a report by ZeroHedge, the transaction was scheduled to be completed within five years (2020) but has still not arrived in 2022.
Since 2015, the London-based Bank of England (BoE) holds 82% of Austria’s gold reserve. Due to the lack of proper accountability of its gold reserve kept abroad, the Austrian Central Bank (OeNB) implemented a new storage policy that requires its gold in England to be repatriated.
OeNB stated that 90 tons kept at BoE would be repatriated, and 50 tons moved to Switzerland with both transactions expected to be completed within five years. Three years after the transfer, OeNB confirmed it had received 90 tons from London. However, 50 tons did not arrive in Switzerland.
After confirmation, the regulator noted on its webpage that the other part should land in Switzerland before the scheduled period. Fast forward to January 2022, a graph on the OeNB website that used to suggest that the transfer to Switzerland had been completed, has now been taken off. The site now reads:
The relocation [from London to Switzerland] has been postponed until organizational and logistical obstacles have been resolved.
Is Bitcoin Better Than Gold?
Since Bitcoin is digital, transfers are as easy as sending emails from one person to another. Unlike Gold, Bitcoin doesn’t have any physical borders like an organization, that could stand in the way of the transaction not getting to its destination at its scheduled time. In most cases, bitcoin transactions are completed within an hour.
Over the years, experts have always argued about which asset is better between bitcoin and gold. The latest report suggests that bitcoin wins in terms of faster settlement as there are no cases of the digital asset transfer taking longer than seven years to complete no matter the value of the transaction. Even in the case of such a rare event, the record would be transparently visible on the blockchain.
A major standpoint of gold supporters is that bitcoin can not serve as a reliable store of value like the precious metal. However, the point has been proven otherwise by governments, financial institutions, and investors, who have continued to adopt the coin and use it as a reliable store of value on the long-term horizon.
