It sure sounds like the U.S. government thinks so.
This NY Times article from Monday documents the new sanctions against Iran that have taken effect, essentially banning anyone from selling or transferring gold to the country. As you have probably heard, to evade earlier sanctions, countries had been paying Iran for its fossil fuels with the barbarous relic. Thus, these new sanctions sure do seem like a tacit acknowledgement of gold’s role as a currency. And anytime you implement a capital control of this sort, the effect is commonly to increase the demand and price of said item. But we shall see.
