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Why does gold have value?
Gold has very useful physical properties for some engineering applications.  Even tiny amounts of gold can substantially improve products, so it can be worthwhile to pay high prices per ounce for gold.  For example: Gold can be "beaten" or electroplated to produce very thin shiny coatings.  Entire roofs (of famous buildings) have been covered with "gold leaf", at a cost that was small compared to the supporting structure. A very thin layer of electroplated gold provides better protection against corrosion than a much thicker layer of electroplated nickel.  Even if gold costs thousands of times more per ounce than nickel, it is cheaper to use gold as an anti-corrosion layer than nickel (for use in military-grade naval electronics). A thin layer of electroplated gold greatly increases the electrical current-carrying capacity of a thin copper wire.