Figure of the month: 22.25

A wire of up to 3,000 metres long could be produced from just one gram of gold, and you would only need a little more than 13 kilograms of gold to span the earth once with a gold thread. It seems all the more fascinating that  the entire amount of mined gold, from the first discovery by humans to the end of 2023, would fit into a cube with an edge length of just 22.25 metres. The Eiffel Tower, under whose lowest platform the cube would fit a good two and a half times, is a particularly topical size comparison in view of the 2024 Olympic games. However, this gold cube would be extremely heavy due to the high density of the precious metal. To be precise, it would weigh 212,523 tonnes.

Where is all the gold that has been mined?

A small fraction of the precious metal proven to have been mined is lost and might very well be on a cargo ship at the bottom of the sea, where it sank 1,000 or more years ago. We do, however, know exactly where the vast majority of the 212,523 tonnes of the precious metal has gone and what it is used for: how much has ended up in private households, how much is used as jewellery, and how much is kept in the large vaults of central banks. Thanks to its unique physical properties, gold – unlike other metals – is practically imperishable and can be melted down again and again to be put to new use.

What are the 212,523 tonnes of gold actually used for?

At 46 per cent of the gold mined to date, its use as jewellery is the undisputed lion’s share. This is followed by the use of the precious metal for investment purposes at 22 per cent. The third-largest buyer of gold are central banks at 17 per cent, followed by all other uses of gold with a total of 15 per cent, i.e. the medical field, the pharmaceutical and automotive industries as well as all modern communication technologies and devices such as smartphones. The value of the imaginary 22.25 metre gold cube, by the way, currently stands at over €15 trillion.