At least until fairly recently.

Gold is heavy – a one kilo bar is slightly smaller than an iPhone. When you see those scenes in "heist" movies where the crooks are lobbing gold bars around, you know they're using spray painted styrofoam. A real gold brick would just drop straight to the floor, probably crushing the guy's foot into mush.

I don't think so. (Plus you'd need a forklift to move that box).

So no matter how superior one might think gold is as a store of value and a monetary metal – if you have anything beyond a small physical amount in your possession and you need to move locations in a hurry, you have a big problem.

Even traveling with coins or small bars can be an issue if you have to get out of a heavily militarized zone or an area where civil order has broken down. It's difficult to conceal, and a magnate for trouble if you're flashing any around to buy passage or refuge.

With cryptos, you can literally hide your wealth in your mind. It's called a "brain wallet": you memorize the seed phrase for your private keys (12 or 24 words), and from there on out you can focus on the task at hand – getting yourself and your family out of whatever "hot zone" you're in.

Whether its a war torn fiefdom in the (so-called) Third World, or a near-future People's Republic of Canada after the Prime Minister seizes your bank account for running a natural gas furnace in the winter, with a brain wallet you just need to get out of dodge, and then you can reestablish yourself, and a chunk of your wealth, from a safe distance.

Online Vaulted Gold Is Not a Viable Defense From Capital Controls

One option that has come to the fore that gives people the ability to hold gold at a distance, is vaulted gold. These are non-bank custodial vaults – often contracting with the likes of Brinks or other companies – that hold precious metals on behalf of their clients. Bullionvault – domiciled in London, UK, is among the largest of these, with  $4.1 billion USD under custody on behalf of over 100,000 clients.