What is the estimated value of mined gold?

Unanswerable question.

@Blackwater_Park Ok then can you check my math? $0.70 ounces times Earth’s populations (7–9 billion) times $2,000 Canadian.

Tough to answer. Too many variables.

For example, there is an unknowable amount of gold in Fort Knox, and then I am sure that Russia (and France, and the UK, and probably the Saudis) have their own warehouses of gold just stacked up.

And then there are the persistent theories that the Nazis melted down millions of ounces of gold and stored them on a train under a mountain in Germany, and that has never been found.

But it gets worse.

Most gold is impure (not 100% gold) – it was melted and mixed with other metals for strength. Does that count as gold as well? Maybe 80% gold?

And think of all the gold tooth filling in peoples’ mouths. Some people’s mouths are worth thousands and thousands of dollars.

Bottom line: It’s impossible to give any sort of accurate guess.

@elbanditoroso Thanks. What about other elements? Like copper or other commodities not just metals? You can include the moon, and asteroids?

What elements will not tank in price when lots of it are discovered in space exploration mining?

I’ll try to answer your second question.

You will be LONG DEAD before earthlings will be in a position to do any sort of space mining and resource recovery. There are probably 200 years of intermediate steps that have to happen before that is even remotely a possibility:

- heavy duty launch vehicles
– mining equipment suited for outer space
– miners to work in outer space
– living facilities for miners
– launch capability for planet, moon, or asteroid mining to return materials to earth.

And don’t forget about the political side of things: What country owns materials mined on the moon or an asteroid?

Science fiction books make it sound easy. It’s not.

I did a search for total gold and found this link Using a world population of 8 billion and 200,000 tons of extracted gold, that works out to just under an ounce per person, so the figures are correct.

The estimated value for all gold would be (250,000 tons of gold) x (2000 pounds per ton) x (16 oz per pound) x ($2000 per oz) = about $13 trillion, which is a 1 followed by 13 zeros.

By way of comparison, the U.S. national debt is about $32 trillion

A lot depends on what is mixed with the raw gold. It needs to be refined.
All of the gold ever mined, minus what has been mined since this statement was recently made, would form a block 10’ X10’ X 100’.
A standard ingot of gold weighs 78 lbs.

A troy ounce of gold is 1/12th of a pound.

1 cubic foot of gold weighs 1100 lbs.