Conservative commentators including Megyn Kelly, Steve Bannon and Donald Trump Jr. have promoted gold investment companies to their audiences, with federal regulators, state authorities and investors filing more than a dozen cases against such companies over the past decade.

Investors allege they were charged steep markups—sometimes hundreds of percent above market value—particularly on specialty coins, dramatically eroding their returns even as gold prices surged.

Daniel McDowell, Maxwell Advisory Board Professor of International Affairs, tells Financial Times the rhetoric serves the dual purpose of appealing to conservatives’ political instincts while simultaneously serving as a marketing tool. 

“There is an instrumental reason to start warning people about currency debasement, even if you don’t deep down think it’s real, if you profit from this,” he says.

In the DW News piece “Is Iran Ending the Petrodollar Era?” which considers Iran's demand to allow ships through the Strait of Hormuz only if the oil is sold in Chinese yuan rather than U.S. dollars, McDowell says, “If we look at oil markets today, the dollar is still far and away the dominant currency that's used.

“But there has been some erosion and most of that erosion has taken place with countries that have been sanctioned by the United States. And many of those countries, or at least a number of those countries, happen to be major oil producing economies,” he says.