The ancient Romans already knew cold storages. Due to enormous demographic problems (deflation as in China today), invasions from the north and east of the empire, recurring waves of plague and economic crises, the Roman Caesars massively inflated their currency, especially in the third and fourth centuries, which led to valuable coins that were still pure in content being hoarded and hidden by their owners.
Over 18,200 such coin hiding places have been discovered and archived by archaeologists around the Mediterranean. The photo here shows an amphora of 10 found by construction workers in Tomares in Spain in 2016. The owner of this 'cold storage' had kept coins, which today are worth around half a million dollars, safe from the authorities and confiscation. History may not repeat itself in detail, but it rhymes in a wonderfully harmonious way.
As a supplement: for those of you who are interested, this map shows the current locations of hoarded Roman coins, over 18,200 in number and over 6 million individual coins have been found so far. People tried everything to keep their savings safe from the state and invaders. https://chre.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/
I have heard that they would sink their clay pots full of coins in the toilets and then fill them in. The invaders didnt know to dig through the shit to find all that wealth!
They called it 'shitcoining'
The ancient shitcoiners.
Put your fine ounces under the pillow, friends! Hide your gold and silver! But not at the bank!
Bank, smank. Anybody trusting banks after 1933 has got to be a living idiot. They have been warned in the strongest way: by actions rather than words.
Interesting...
How do we know they were hiding them away to escape debasement? Maybe they simply used to keep their money in this way.
Gresham’s law in action!
Very interesting, thanks for the link as well. The map is fascinating.
So...these cold storage locations were basically failures, right? It's like losing your seed phrase. They were never retrieved and used. Inheritance plan failed.