Executive Order 6102

Executive Order 6102, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt on April 5, 1933, required US persons to deliver their gold coin, bullion, and gold certificates to the Federal Reserve in exchange for $20.67 per troy ounce, with exceptions for jewelry, collectible coins, and small holdings. Violations carried penalties of up to $10,000 or ten years imprisonment.

Why it matters

EO 6102 is the canonical proof that even the strongest property claim in the strongest legal system can yield to monetary emergency. After the surrender, the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 revalued gold to $35 per ounce, an immediate 69 percent devaluation of the dollar against gold captured as government profit. Private gold ownership remained broadly illegal in the US until the end of 1974. The episode permanently shaped hard-asset thinking: it is why confiscation risk appears in every serious discussion of gold storage, jurisdiction, and the difference between holding an asset and being allowed to keep it.

In the gold vs bitcoin debate

The order is cited constantly on both sides. Bitcoin advocates use it to argue that gold's physicality is a liability, since vaults and safe deposit boxes were reachable by decree, while bitcoin secured by a memorized seed phrase resists blanket seizure. Gold advocates reply that compliance in 1933 was far from total, that enforcement against individuals was rare, and that governments can equally target bitcoin through exchanges, custodians, and criminalized conversion. The real lesson is that political risk attaches to any money the state does not issue. Either way, 6102 remains the strongest historical argument for thinking about custody and jurisdiction before an emergency rather than during one.