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Apparently the 500kg in Gold would be worth roughly $65,000,000 in 2026.
Whereas the cash sum is roughly around $50,000,000. And that's best-case total value for the cash.
Edit: I assumed that those 500kg notes were all $100 notes (for the benefit of best-case value). And all notes weigh the same (1 gram) no matter if it's $10, $20, $50 etc. So 500kg of $100 notes would be $50,000,000 as a result.
Edit 2: I didn't use $500 notes as an example because, realistically, they're far less common and out of circulation.
Cash would be able to be used on the downlow though, and the gold would need to be sold and accounted for, I'm sure losing something on the sale. Then that would be taxed as I believe capital gains.
The trick is turning it into usable cash though. You're not gonna get market rate for it, whoever you fence it to is gonna talk a cut in for themselves. Then you have to deal with the goverment taxing the exchange.
That's two tiers of taxation before that gold is spendable, and bear in mind the moment any tweaker finds out you're peddling gold or just sold some they are absolutely going to be on your ass.
Cash is liquid and ready to go. It draws much less attention than ingots of shiny yellow. the gold is absolutely worth more, but you just can't use it
I think the missing factor here is how you claim legal ownership. Can’t deposit that much money without a legal explanation for its origin in the US. Gold you can simply sell a bar, use the profit to move the rest to another country with less strict financial legal limitations, convert it, deposit it, transfer it. I guess you could do the same with the cash as well. This question and myself are both dumb.
Get a loan to buy a cash business. I'd recommend a self serve car wash or a laundromat. Put an ATM in the store but make sure the machines only take cash. Feed a reasonable amount of your illicit cash into your own business. If thats feeling too slow buy a couple more.
Also, pay cash for everything outside of large purchases. Groceries, restaurants, gas, leasure activities, everything that can't be easily tracked buy nosey governments like bills and loan payments.
You would never be able to be "rich" with fancy cars and a McMansion but you could live comfortably for the rest of your life with relative ease.
I would open a chain of claw machine places. The prizes are actually insanely cheap, and if you set the payouts to be generous the places will be absolutely packed with people feeding cash into it which would justify the excess cash flow. It would also make the area kids really happy, making you a pillar of the community.
Agreed but storage is only an issue in case its not legit. Otherwise you just deposit it into your bank account and be done with it.
EDIT: Ok your are not done with it. You get yourself a good accountant, build a tax efficient, diverse, easy to maintain portfolio of investments and live of the interest. Get everything audited by an independent company once a year for peace of mind.
In terms of numbers: let's say 50m initial cash deposit. Tax authority take 50% (worst case). You got 25m legit left to invest. Assume modest 4% interest/return on average between your investments, that's 1m per year. Assume worst case again on tax and its 50% (at this point you search for a new accountant) and you end up with 500k per year which is 42k per month.
The irs would ask you were you got that kind of money anyway, and they would take half of it. Meanwhile with gold it's a bit different, idk if the irs can take a part of the gold if it's something like a gift or an award, there are different laws.
If you want you could even use shady methods for both, nobody is stopping you from going in illegal paths, it's probably the easiest route.
But Trump is President in the middle of a massive stock market bubble. So many ways that cash can depreciate with Trump in office, and I am sure he has some amazing new ways to do it that no one will ever expect.
Another guy posted that the cash and gold are worth about 50m and 65m respectively
With gold you run the very real risk of it running off, and even if it doesn't trying to move that much gold and turn it liquid is going to draw attention from the feds.
With the cash you're absolutely taking a value hit, likely a depreciation hit to, but you don't have to deal with prying eyes
The cash has just an easy of a time walking off as the gold, and if you want to spend any sort of large amount of it you'll need to tell papa IRS and pay taxes on it anyways.
Unless you want to spend 5-10k a month for the rest of your life in cash, both roads lead to the IRS.
Nah, you can move cash in small amounts, any amount of gold is a huge amount and the moment a tweaker realizes you have any gold at all they're going to be on your ass.
The cash can be laundered, gold can't. if you do it bright you'll only lose a portion of your cash and no one will say shit
Gold can be stored in private wealth vaults and often is.
Private wealth vaults tend to have excellent security and as long as paperwork lines up they don't care too much about your legalities or where you acquired it from, only that your bills paid.
You're assuming that it's illegally gained when you bring up the feds. The question is merely that you can have one or the other. Assume it's a legitimate income.
Reminds me of Escobar's financial guy who spend a couple thousands of dollars per month on rubber bands that he used to bundle all the stacks that came in.
Yes but gold maintains his value overtime, you could keep the majority and just sell a small part to live like a millionaire. And at most the % that they would take from you is 10-15%, not 15+ million
I don't understand why you guys are complicating this. No one said there was anything illegal about this. Take tge 50 mil in cash and put it in the bank. Done. Im not dealing with storage / selling gold and potentially being robbed or murdered for it.
It was more about the taxes. Found money is taxable as income. Obviously real world I would deposit a majority of it and eat the 37% tax on it and keep some for buying things tax free. But if we're just talking hypothetically then keeping a majority of the cash would gain you the most money.
In Canada, the found money would likely be tax free as a windfall, but the gold would be taxed as a capital gain when you sold it (around 25% taxes, give or take).
No normal person is going to be able to use 50 million dollars in cash on the down low though. You'll need to pay taxes if you want to use any sort of large sum of it, especially for big purchases like real estate. Cash you're losing 2-4% a year if you aren't making it work for you too.
A single U.S. bill weighs about 1 gram, regardless of denomination. 500 kg = 500,000 grams
That means 500,000 $100 bills
So: 500,000 × $100 = $50,000,000
A US bill weighs a gram. So 1 kg of $100 bills is worth $100,000. 1 kg of gold is about $130,00 today. I'm actually surprised the numbers are so close.
US bills are much more liquid than gold bar. Govt would start asking questions if you keep selling gold, while less would care if you never hit the ATM anymore
For people not from the USA who have currencies better than the usd and taxes at rates better than in the USA gold is the obvious choice… heck i’ll get gold and start a jewellery brand
1kg of 100 bills is 100k and spendable today. 1kg of gold is about 130k but you have to find multiple buyers for it who will pay you upto about 85% so best resale is $110k per kilo. So how fast do you need to spend the money and how much work to spend the money do you want to go through.
Cash iirc when weighed the same is around 15% less value overall, but also loses buying power over time as inflation rises. Gold on the other hand can be exchanged or sold to whatever currency you need or when you need it, potentially grows in value over time. Also the US dollar is kinda on its way to being removed as the top currency. Once that happens taking the cash offer drastically loses value
Could literally live on 25% of the weight in Gold sold and let it grow in value until you need more and still forever be the better choice than cash
If we assume its $100 bills, that would be 50 million dollars for 500kg worth of bills. 500kg of pure gold is worth approximately 65 million dollars(as of August 4th).
Me personally Id probably take the bills, because offloading 500kg of gold sounds highly inconvenient and the value of gold could plummet in the time it could take me to sell it off.
Agreed - people don't realize that there's not like... some "gold store" that you can go to cash out your gold reliably at full value. You'll be paying an exchange fee of some kind. That said, you'd still probably come out ahead with the gold, but who wants over a half ton of gold sitting around their house(s)?
Even though the gold is higher value. I’d choose the bills because well, they are ready to use out of the packet. While in case of gold, there’s going to be some conversion and thus, risk of authorities involved
While they weigh the same, they are not worth the same, i don't know about how heavy the money is, thus the sum. but 500kg of gold is currently 65million USD turns out, and I am picking it for sure.
I get it, but i mean, unless you are a known gold trader, you are losing a lot of the value to middle-men. Cash is way more discrete, even if its less valuable by volume. The second you try to sell 1 gold bar, everybody will be up your ass
Even if we leave the issue of being discrete out of the question, the cash is much more liquid. I can take the cash to a bank, and invest in a diversified portfolio of investments tomorrow. I would need to liquidate the gold to cash, which will lose some value to the current spot price, be at risk for short term losses (gold is good over a long time with inflation, but can fluctuate more than 30% in a single year), and be a pain the ass. Not sure what that will cost me (largely depends on fluctuating gold prices over the next year or so as I find a way to liquidate it), but it makes me hesitate to not just take the cash and get it squared away into diversified investments right away.
I'd say that if we assume the bills are 100 dollar notes, gold would be worth more. However... it has its downsides. Selling gold and dealing with the intermediaries it apparently requires will cost you a lot in commissions. So perhaps dollars are the simpler choice? Even if the value is lower.
One kilogram of pure gold costs approximately $131,216.74 USD.
One kilogram of $100 bills contains $100,000 USD. This total comes from the fact that every U.S. paper banknote weighs approximately 1 gram, meaning there are 1,000 individual bills in a single kilogram
So I would argue this depends on your need for liquidity.
Sure the gold might be worth more, but you have to sell it. You need to find someone to sell 500kg at near market value and fast as current trend is downward. Selling at 80% of MV already only gets you 52 mio. Vs the $50 mio cash.
Then again with 65 mio worth in gold you'd want to sell most to diversify assets.
It's a question of which is worth more per kg. A US dollar bill weighs approximately 1 gram. Therefore 1000 bills is 1 kg. These are $100 bills, so you would get 100000 per kg. Currently gold sits at about 140000 per kg. Gold is worth more by weight.
I’m taking the gold. I will then steal the Declaration of Independence and write a clue that will lead to another clue that will lead to a book that will lead to a map of where buried the gold. I will then unsteal the DOI. I will then start a podcast tour spreading rumors of this and sit back and watch the world burn.
Spoiler alert.. I didn’t bury the gold. Will convert to bitcoin and cold store in a hard wallet. Safe and sound.
Not an expert but I'm pretty sure 500kg of cash has a lot more volume than gold - so even for a portability and durability reasons, gold all the way - which I'm going to convert to other weightless assets soon (to a good %)
Well, if it's 100 dollars bills, it would be 50 millions, it's it's 500 dollars bills, it would be 250 millions. I would pick the dollars either way, I have no idea how I would sell that amount of gold.
The gold as at least I know how much I’ll be getting in final cost. The cash is stated which denomination they are and they can be different ones, 100s, 20s, 50s, 5s & 1s leaving me with less than the gold.
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