Gold: ~$145,000/kg
Dollar bills = about $1,000/kg
For reference.
Edit: didn’t tap the image to see $100 bills. Add a couple zeros to the $/kg amount.
It’d be $100,000 because they’re $100 bills
This right here.
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The photograph in the post depicts $100 bills.
Ah, thank you. My bad. Didn’t tap the image.
Not to mention the value of gold is not tied to how stupid the US president happens to be at that moment.
10 $100 notes weigh a kilogram?
That’s not what the meme math is.
1kg of $1 bills = $1,000.
where is it written?
The unit of mass: kg
The unit of currency: dollars
You do the math.
The gold of course, Dollar is not even worth its weight in paper in a few years
I’m not getting either. 500kg is powerlifter territory, nobody else can lift it.
Everybody ITT
But I would have to pay taxes 😱
What are y’all doing complainig about billionaires not paying taxes, when you want to avoid them already talking about imaginary money?
Yeah, oh no I have to pay taxes on a massive windfall… Fuck off with that, I want my society to function. I get that it’s a big chunk, but it’s also free money.
I’ve heard numerous people complain about getting a raise because they would end up in a higher tax bracket and come out net negative…I don’t think most people understand how tax brackets work.
I learned about tax brackets when I went up a bracket.
Self education is seriously lacking for most people.
Literally just search “how do tax brackets work?”
Took me 15 min to learn everything I needed to know instead of making a false assumption.
It gets wonky with a non-cash windfall though. A couple of years ago my wife and I won game tickets valued around $3k which of course you have to pay income tax on which was ultimately around a thousand dollars (I don’t remember exactly, but it was something like 30-50% of the winnings) for just those tickets, which of course since they’re game tickets you then spend more money going to the game. Ultimately we could afford it and enjoyed the experience but I do not want to imagine how that goes for folks who win for example a $40k car and don’t take the cash equivalent option
The weird thing is a) assuming you wouldn’t have to pay taxes on the value of the gold, and b) not understanding you’d still be a shitload richer yet complain about the taxes anyway. What are you all, instant Donald Trumps? Get a few bucks and immediately not want to pay taxes?
I would happily pay taxes on FREE MONEY. Like how are people such babies? The pay/effort ratio is still amazing even if the tax rate was 95%. Only slightly worse than the pay/effort ratio of a billionaire taking a shit on the toilet.
Why not both?
Take the cash, there’s more value in the cash by weight, use the cash to buy the gold and keep the surplus cash.
Gold has spiked recently. It’s worth more than $100s by weight.
I mean, isn’t that the joke/intention?
500kg of gold is $72.6 million as of current market value.
The image shows 100 dollar bills, so let’s assume the 500kg consists of just that. That would add up to ~$50 million (~1 gram each, adding up to 500.000 bills).
Gold increases in value. The dollar is decreasing in value and Trump is making sure it’s going to tank as soon as possible.
Gold is worth more and is a wiser investment over time so I pick gold, with delivery please and thank you.
Good luck liquidating 500kg of gold without someone taking a decent cut. Gold doesn’t always increase in value, it’s a highly volatile commodity and atm is highly over speculated. More than likely whenever trump dies or leaves the office the market will correct itself to pre-pandemic pricing.
When people who don’t understand what fiat currency is get scared by geopolitical instability they buy gold. Whenever those geopolitical instabilities absolve themselves they sell.
You’d probably be better off taking cash and investing it into index stock then taking the time and money to store, transport, and sell that much gold. There’s a reason why billionaires are building Scrooge McDuck vaults and swimming in bullions.
Good luck liquidating 500kg of gold without someone taking a decent cut.
If that decent cut is 95%, you’d get only 5%. Sounds bad. 5% of 72.6 million is … 3.63 million.
Yeah, I’ll still take it.
I would just lock it all up in a vault. Why would I need to liquidate it? I can take loans from the bank indefinitely, as I have the gold as insurance. That’s what billionaires do as well, to avoid taxes. They use their wealth in stock as insurance to take out loans, because on loads you don’t pay taxes. But in my case I would pay taxes for the value of the gold, like a decent person.
There is such a thing as a gold loan, but it’s not really a good deal compared to even something like a HELOC loan. The interest rates are much higher, and they’ll usually only loan out 50% of the value of the gold, and you’ll have to hand it over to the bank for storage.
The main problem with this is that you don’t have an income or a way to make more gold like billionaires can with stock. So you would have to eventually sell some of the gold to pay the loan. Which would entail not only paying interest on the loan, but a 28% tax on the gold. You don’t have a skeem like capital gains to lower your tax burden with a physical commodity.
Take out the loan. Invest it into stock. Get another loan to pay off the previous loan and living money. Continue indefinitely. Problem solved. Make more money, without touching the gold. Invest everything extra you make into more stock.
Ok, but… what if the bank asks where you got the gold? Or they ask if you have proof you came by it legally, and then the IRS notices you have a bunch of outstanding loans collateralized with an asset they have no record of you obtaining or paying taxes on the income used to obtain it.
Like… with the cash, you just… spend it on stuff. If you need to pay for something not in cash, then just open a cash based business and overstate your sales.
Or you could… just… list those things as unspecified income and pay taxes on it and not worry about slipping up and going to jail.
Where would you use all that cash? In my country you’re not allowed to make purchases over 3k. Payments bigger than that are rejected and authorities are notified.
I was assuming the prize was legit, which would also mean you’d have to pay taxes over it. Than you have it legally and you can use it to take out loans.
That’s my secret Mr. Stark… I’m always geopolitical instabilities
I mean fair point… But to be honest, it’s more likely that another fiat currency replaces the dollar than it is for gold to become a standard again. Gold doesn’t have any inherent value outside of some electronics, and it’s incredibly inconvenient to actually trade with.
I think if the dollar does fall off the map and the euro or yuan successfully replaces it as top dog, it’d probably be the actual death knell that kills off peoples gold obsession.
I think actually in the US you could file the gold under capital gains and get a better tax rate if you’re willing to hold onto it for years.
Though outside the US the USD are probably a wiser choice. Also if you plan on liquidating the gold immediately its likely subject to sales tax where they exist making it a much worse value proposition.
Nah, in the US gold is considered a “collectible” and is taxed at the maximum federal rate of 28% when sold. Capital gains would only apply to something like stock in gold index funds or mining companies.
Could be that only the outer ones are 100 dollar bills while the inner ones are 1 Dollar bills because they are the same size.
Fun Fact: This is bad for accessibility, thats why the Euro has three indicators for blind people to find the right bill: different sizes, a feelable line structure on the side and different colors for those that can are legally blind but still can see some rough colors.
Those features you mentioned are actual quite widespread: the EU, Norway, Poland, the UK, Australia, Canada, NZ, and more all have them. It’s really just the US that insist on having basically indistinguishable sludge-coloured notes. I used to handle international currently regular and hated dealing with US dollars.
The US has one of the most easily forged currencies in the world you would have thought they’d done something about it by now. You just bleach low denomination bills and then print hire denomination bills on the resulting blank paper. It’s such an utterly stupid hack that absolutely should not work.
That’s how Trump is planning to make his $250 bill. He’s just going to print them on bleached $1 bills. It’s the sort of thing he would do.
They did something about that several versions ago. The dollar bill doesn’t have the same security features as higher denominations.
Pretty much only the us has such terrible currency design.
But I’m lazy and would just leave the gold in a closet rather than having to deal with selling it. And $50 mil is more than enough for me.
You could pay someone to deal with all that for much less than the ~$20 million difference.
Nah, I need the gold. I need to build myself a mid-range gaming PC.
Get me one of them sweet $28 O’Leary lunches
To do normal groceries I need at least 54m
So if Musk had 500kg of gold lying around in some vault and I’d manage to steal it in some heist of the century, he’d be only left with 99.99% of his wealth. Imagine: a whopping 0.001% of his wealth gone in an instance, how would he ever recover from that?
A cube of gold weighing 509kgs would only be about 30cm on a side.
521 kg, no? (27L x 19.32 Kg/L)
No thanks, I’ve read Umineko, I know how this ends
Gold for me. Its worth a bit more and will probably increase in value over time. Money will lose value over time.
Since I don’t plan on spending it all at once, right this moment, it works better in my favor if it appreciates in value. I’m too much of a pussy to invest, so I’d probably let the bills rot too.
I’d sell the gold bit by bit, underground if need be, to avoid taxes.
I’d pick money only if I actually needed 50 million in cash right now and had a way to launder it… that is, if these were $100 bills.Gold, so I don’t have to touch US dahlors
Cash, the value be dammed. Im not trying to sell fucking gold. Im not a fucking merchant
I’d choose gold. AFAIK most all money laundering rules deal with cash.
Even if a geine were to give you 500 tons of cash or gold, some governments may have a problem with that and choose to redistribute it.
Choosing gold makes the value much more liquid in my opinion.
Not to mention that gold doesn’t rot (unlike USD). In today’s economy gold is probably more value-dense (as in, a pound of gold is worth more than a pound of hundered-dollar bills).
Currencies also come and go but gold stays. If you’re thinking long-term, gold is the vastly better choice.
Depending where you are you might not be able to put a that amount of cash in your bank, although it’s easier to use.
O, very little would actually get deposited. But all my groceries and eating out and booze and lots of video games and hobbie shit will just get paid for in cash.
You don’t sell the gold. You take 10x loans of gold’s worth and use it as collateral. Like banks and billionaires do. Well maybe 100x…
you can visit my local pawn shop, they give cash for gold
70m in gold pls
Okay, here’s your five dollars. Thank you for your business.
If the gold is in an accepted standard form, such as krugerrands, you just need to find a precious metals dealer. If it’s just a pile of gold, then there’s a lot of hassle. I imagine ingots of the sort national gold reserves hold would be somewhere in between.
Shifting a large quantity of gold may require a non-optional explanation of its provenance, with “I woke up and it was just there” or “a genie gave it to me after I did an online quiz” not being adequate, and an inadequate explanation resulting in its forfeiture if not more serious legal hassles. With a large pile of gold and no good explanation, you may be reduced to smurfing small pieces of it to different dealers, moving around a lot and avoiding the attention that such a pile would inevitably draw.
I wonder if i should pick the option that is going to make someone else rich off their commission, or just cash?
Same would be required for 50M in cash not to mention Taxes.
Btw cash is 50M gold is ~90M
(And yes the “M” dose mean Monopoly money)
People like Al Capone would have a few things to say about unverified sources of wealth in any form. Pretty sure if I show up at a car dealer with a briefcase of bills it’ll raise a few questions too.
Yet another way society is biased against the poor. A rich guy shows up with a briefcase full of money and nobody bats an eye, it’s just another day. A poor guy shows up with a briefcase full of money and then suddenly everyone starts asking questions, and if he doesn’t have good enough answers he might get thrown in jail.
What if I mowed a rich guy’s lawn and he gave me a really big tip? No, I don’t remember his name. No, I didn’t keep the address. It was over there somewhere, go that way, it’s the big house with the mown lawn. You’ll find it, just keep looking…
US law requires any cash transaction of $10,000 or more be reported to the IRS/Treasury Dept. to include the federal tax ID # of both parties/entities, and the deposit accounts involved.
5002 $9999 transactions
Structurization.
I know someone who worked in a software company that developed algorithms and systems for banks and gambling to detect these.
Depends on the dealership, heh
a large pile of gold
That depends as well. Gold in specimen and nugget form can be worth considerably more than its value by weight and there’s plenty out there chasing these. These are not hard to move at all.
But yeah, there can be difficulties trading it and it’s generally subject to taxes. Quite often you need to be licenced as at least a fossicker if you’re selling unrefined gold as a prospector.
That’s without the pain in the arse process of separating it from impurities.
You don’t think you’ll be investogated for a massive gold transaction?
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Besides, you never know when the FBI might show up.
I could see FBI showing up if you try to do something with 500 kg of dollar bills as well.
What denomination are the bills and how much does each brick of gold weight? Cuz I mean, if the bills are high enough, like $5000s they might be worth more than the gold.
Edit: The weight of the money doesn’t matter as much as the denominaton here. A $1 bill weighs the same as a $500 bill, y’all. If gold is $145 per ounce, a 500kg pile of $500 or $1000 bills that weigh about 1 gram each is worth a lot more. If they are $1s, $5s, $10s, $20s, $50s or eveb $100s, take the gold. If they are $500s or higher, take the cash.
A US $1 weighs 1g according to a random website I found on the Internet. I tested and it’s close enough.
As of today 2026/06/02, a gram of gold is worth about $140 assuming it’s minted and the purity is known.
That honestly surprises me. It means that gold and bills (assuming c-bills) are within an order of magnitude of each other.
Worst case with bill denominations: half a million. Best case with bill denominations: 50 million dollars.
Worst case with gold: $140/g less 10% worst case for verification and bulk buy discounts. $120/g ballpark. $60 million. Best case with gold: ~$70 million dollars upper bound for known minted purity.
So gold has the highest potential return but also the highest overhead.
I’d probably go gold. Even if I lost 50% due to overhead, I’d be able to pay my mortgage and my brother’s student loans and for my mum to live in a nice place.
Honestly, any of them would be a life changing amount of money.
I didn’t do the math but concluded that gold was the better value but harder to handle.
70ish million for the gold, and 50 Million for the money.
a hundred dollar bill weighs a gram and is worth $100, a gram of gold is worth $145. However you’ll pay income tax on the gold profit when you sell to get your cash.
Nah, I know a guy.
To be fair, I don’t know exactly how we’re getting this cash, but chances are it’s also taxable. Maybe you could get away with it, but that’s a lot of millions to hide.
Thats why you borrow against it :)
You can see they’re in 100s
US dollars measured in kilos? Very suspicious. Gold then
£500 of US dollars
Gold
Bills weigh 1g, and 1g of gold is >$100, so I’m going with gold.
Around $140/gram currently for those curious
So then, however disgusting the thought, if they do make the trump $250 bill then that would be the only case where taking the cash is the better deal (putting ease of use for gold vs bills aside)
Reminds me, that we are sadly phasing out €500
You’d think it would be popular with the drug dealers, but I guess crypto maybe has taken its place.
WWII killed the 500 bill (that was gold-backed at the time) so now ppl have to smuggle gold.
for a little while, yah ;)
wolframalpha says the gold is worth about $22m more, but it’s a no-brainer. gimme the cash ($50m). the extra ‘value’ in the gold is not worth the extraordinary measures needed to deal with it.
But the cash is more liquid. Selling $70M worth of gold is a hassle and would invite unwanted attention. $50M in cash you can spend right away.
Cash in this day and age is a huge pain in the butt. Sure, you can get groceries and some tech. But buying a house or even a car or pay for services? Impossible to very inconvenient. Even just paying for everything in cash will be a problem if you ever get audited. You’d need to launder the money somehow and at that point you can also take the gold.
Another critical difference:
If you got a million dollars in cash you were obliged to pay taxes upon receipt, and if you did not do so and you try to deposit it, you are going to get flagged for a tax audit and subject to criminal charges.
If you got a million dollars in GOLD you don’t pay taxes until you sell it. So you can sit on it for years and then sell it and deposit it and you only pay taxes at that moment and have not broken the law in doing so.
Money is income, Gold is just gold until you turn it into money.
Good point, but after a while someone would still want to know where the gold came from. Unless you sell it so slowly that it’d be barely useful to you.
“after a while someone would still want to know where the gold came from”, five minutes after the cash has been exchanged, you’ll be quickly forgotten about. You don’t live in a damn csi episode
I do, however, live in the real world. Where anyone giving you a decent price for your gold is subject to AML laws.
Cash is honestly easier for your average person to deal with. Either way you’re either going to pay a ton of taxes or you’re going to hide everything. Gold is great if you have a trustworthy buyer that’s not operating legally, in which case you can… Turn it into cash. Woops.
You’re saying I should open a car wash?
The point of laundering is to wash money acquired illegally. Meaning you still have to pay the taxes.
If the 500 KG of cash lands on your lap legally and you can somehow prove that, you can just declare it as income and pay the taxes. If it’s drug money or something then you’ll have to launder.
On the advice of counsel, I decline to answer that question.
Cash in this day and age is a huge pain in the butt.
The initial deposit would be tricky, but after that it’s pretty straightforward.
Would it raise as many questions if you inexplicably receive a priceless painting as a gift from an anonymous benefactor and then sell it on the legitimate market?
$50M in cash you can spend right away.
Maybe the bank won’t be too curious, but the IRS will definitely notice.
Just pay taxes on $50M. Then you’re left with around $25-35M depending on how you report it.
And that’s more than enough to live comfortably on indefinitely
Yeah by my calc a 1kg of $100 bills is about 100K, but the kg of gold is roughly $140k-150K (I just checked and its $144K)
But then I’d have to sell the gold…
So only go with bills if they’re in denominations >$100. I guess this would work better with euros.
I agree: you’d probably pawn the gold off to some billionaire for some nominal amount less than its face value. (Would the government let you as a private citizen just sell them like $70 million in gold?) I’m assuming this is legal and in-the-clear, and it doesn’t matter if we assume it was created out of thin air.
I say “less than” because the buyers know you probably lack connections and just want it gone ASAP so you’re not robbed or worse. Still, whatever percentage hit you take can’t be anywhere near the 40% difference between the cash and the gold, and you’d probably dump it so quick that the investment opportunity cost wouldn’t matter.
Edit: Although if we assumed this was secret but entirely legal (like I somehow had $50 million but nobody but the revenue service knew), then I could maybe stomach the $20 million loss in exchange for less attention. Still, you’d be drawing a lot of suspicion trying to get that 500 kg of $100 bills into an account (or multiple) before you get found out.
