Wyoming’s historic $10 million gold purchase required by 2025 legislation has happened with little fanfare.
There were no public announcements or press releases at the time. There was just a brief mention of the December purchase during a Jan. 9 Joint Appropriations Committee hearing.
Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, asked the Wyoming Treasurer’s office for an update on whether the purchase had been made during the hearings.
Deputy Director Dawn Williams confirmed the Treasurer’s office had indeed purchased the gold on Dec. 19. In all, Williams said the purchase totaled 2,312 ounces of gold, at $4,337.60 per ounce.
That gold is now physically housed at the Wyoming Reserve, Williams added, which is a high-security vault in Casper focused on secure storage of precious metals.
The CEO of the Wyoming Reserve is Josh Phair, who is also CEO of Scottsdale Mint, which fabricates gold and silver coins, bars and bullion for central banks and Fortune 500 companies, as well as other countries and customers.
Wyoming’s newly purchased gold is worth $400,000 more now than when it was acquired a month ago, and State Sen. Bob Ide, R-Casper, isn’t being quiet about that, at all. To him, that meteoric rise in value is exactly the point behind the Wyoming Gold Act, which he sponsored during last year’s legislative session.
“We have to think outside the box,” Ide told Cowboy State Daily. “We have to take measures to protect what we’ve stored. These dollar-denominated investments are priced in dollars, and the dollar’s getting diluted and debased rapidly. I mean we have $2 trillion federal deficits as far as the eye can see.”
Gold, Silver Payments For Taxes And Fees
With Congress raising the debt ceiling another $5 trillion in July as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill, Ide believes the “chickens are coming home to roost.”
The only way to protect the state’s wealth, Ide believes, is to hold at least some physical gold in reserve.
“What gold is doing is kind of the, I hate to use the word ‘BS’ but it’s the BS meter on what’s going on,” he said. “We need to buy more hedges against the debasement machine back in the Federal Reserve. That’s kind of the whole mission on this is to protect our store of wealth. (Gold) is a good strategic asset to hedge against the monetary debasement of our dollar.”
Ide, who sponsored the Wyoming Gold Act, has had many people asking him whether the state had purchased the gold his bill required. That led him to talk to the Treasurer’s office last week, to get written verification of what was purchased when, just so he could answer those questions properly.
Down the line, Ide also hopes to see Wyoming accept gold and silver payments, and a study of what it would take to do that was among key points of his bill.
In its report, delivered last year in October, the Treasurer’s office said it had no recommendations for further legislation when it comes to that topic and noted that gold couldn’t be disbursed until it is exchanged into fiat currency.
“The risk of valuation fluctuations would lie solely with the state of Wyoming,” the report noted. “And the ability to disburse those monies would depend entirely on the ability to exchange that holding for U.S. dollars."
Wyoming Still Tops Sound Money Rankings
Wyoming has been trending at the top of “sound money” rankings of late, and will keep its No. 1 spot for 2026 in the Sound Money Index, published annually by Sound Money Defense League and Money Metals Exchange.
Sound money is the term gold and silver advocates have used to describe their ideal of returning to gold and silver as legal currency, because they contend precious metals will hold value better over time.
The Sound Money Index looks at several factors in its ranking for all 50 states, with extra points for states who have gone beyond conceptual and taken concrete steps toward sound money.
That includes requiring state reserves held in gold, as the Wyoming Gold Act required, as well as things like the Wyoming Tender Act, which removed sales taxes from the equation when buying or selling gold or silver bullion coins and bars.
The bill was sponsored by the late Roy Edwards and at the time of its passage, Wyoming was one of the earliest states to accomplish that.
Wyoming’s sound money laws have already attracted new business to Wyoming, like Phair’s Scottsdale Mint. In previous interviews, Phair has told Cowboy State Daily he chose Wyoming because he appreciated its stand on precious metals laws, as well as the chance to have a Foreign Trade and Opportunity Zone.
“Wyoming runs, it’s almost like its own sovereign wealth fund,” he said, referring to the state’s Mineral Trust Fund. “And if it was listed as a sovereign wealth fund, I think it’d be a top 20 in the world.”
Phair believes having gold strengthens Wyoming’s financial foundation for the future. He’s also interested to see how Wyoming’s new stable token will turn out.
Gold Can Be A Double-Edged Sword
Not everyone was happy about the Wyoming Gold Act. Wyoming Treasurer Curt Meier, for one, warned during debate of the bill that holding gold can become a double-edged sword, and pointed out that the state already had the power to purchase gold if its team of investors decided that would be beneficial.
Meier told Cowboy State Daily last year that he agrees gold can help provide stability and protect value when inflation is high.
“But the downside is, there’s no way to take advantage of any increase in value, unless you sell your physical assets,” he said.
Holding large sums of money in gold also ultimately subtracts from the overall purpose of the funds he’s managing, he added.
“Wyoming’s General Fund depends on revenue from earnings on our investments — nearly one-third of the state’s budget is paid for through investment income,” he said. “Taking money away from our regular portfolio decreases the amount of money we will be able to provide annually.”
Gov. Mark Gordon also opposed the measure, though he did let the Wyoming Gold Act pass into law without his signature.
“Gold is not an investment as much as it is a commodity or store of value,” he wrote in a letter outlining his objections. “The only income to be derived from gold is to sell it for a greater price than it was purchased.
“Market timing speculation is not a consistently valuable investment strategy, as gold will trade at more or less depending on market conditions.”
Storing gold also requires significant expense for things like secure storage and logistics.
Gordon also objected to the invasion of executive branch responsibilities, which he suggested could harm the state’s overall portfolio performance.
Foot-Dragging Cost $4 Million In Value
Ide, on the other hand, believes the state was, if anything, a little tardy in making its gold purchase.
“The price of gold is up $1,800 (an ounce) or whatever since then,” he said. “So, when the bill went into law, the price of gold was about $2,900 and some change. I’ve been tracking it, just so I can tell everyone what’s going on.”
Based on Ide’s math, the state lost out on at least $1,800 on every ounce of gold it purchased by waiting so long to buy.
“If they bought 2,300 ounces, take that times $1,800,” Ide said. “That’s $4 million — over $4 million.”
That’s how much more the state’s gold could have been worth over its purchase price, had the state’s gold been purchased immediately after the bill directing that purchase passed into law.
Of course, that’s an “on paper” value until the gold is cashed in, Ide acknowledged. And he doesn’t foresee any time in the near future where it’d be a good idea to sell any of the gold Wyoming has so far purchased.
“I guess if we quit deficit spending back in Washington,” he said. “That’s why it’s performing. Gold held its value at $35 for a long time, until they really figured out that we could just, we have this fiat currency backed by nothing that we can just spend on welfare and warfare until we can’t. So, there could come a time (to sell) but, if you think they’re going to keep debasing our federal reserve note dollars, then there’s no reason not to hold gold.”
In Ide’s opinion, the percentage of Wyoming investments that should be in gold is at least 10%, which would mean purchasing a lot more gold.
“Investment banks and brokers, wealth managers, used to say put 60% stocks and 40% bonds for a balanced portfolio,” Ide said. “Morgan Stanley, in October, came out and I think Bank of America has just recently come out and now they’re saying 60% stocks, 20% gold and 20% bonds... So, even the big investment managers are starting to wake up.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
