Demurrage

When thinking about storing and carrying precious metals such as gold and silver or other commodities, one often overlooked factor is storage and its accompanying costs. Vaults, security, and monitoring, both electronic and physical, are all additional costs in addition to demurrage, which is an additional fee that functions like a tax. It discourages hoarding, especially when the value of the stored asset drops, and putting it back into circulation makes more fiscal sense. This applies to currency as well, and can take the form of a stamp tax for paper money. The goal is to keep the money or asset in circulation.

Demurrage is also defined as the cost of holding cargo on a maritime vessel due to delays at the port.