The Russian ruble is in free fall and the Russian central bank had to raise interest rates to 17% to stop the crash in its tracks for now. Can you imagine what interest rates of 17% mean for the European or the American economy?

There is a group of people, however, that have no problem with the fall of the Russian ruble: gold investors.

Gold is not just an investment that goes up and down, it holds its value. Most of the time the gold price does not move around much and when the gold price makes a big wave expressed in a certain currency, it usually says more about the currency.

When a currency crashes during a monetary crisis, however, gold shines – like we saw earlier in Venezuela, Iran and now in Russia. The Russians that believe in the government (cfr. Putin) saw their savings go up in smoke.

The ones that put their money in the boring precious metal that slipped into a bear market, however, saw their buying power in their local currency increase by 60% over the last few months!

These people are not making money, they are preserving their wealth.

This is what things look like when countries run their currency into the ground. From the Roman Empire over the French Revolution to Venezuela, Iran, and Russia, gold preserves wealth – you can still buy the same amount of products and services.