Is anyone else feeling the heat on physical vs. paper gold right now?

• •Okay, so I've been wrestling with this more than usual lately, especially with the market looking like a roller coaster designed by a madman.
• •For the longest time, I felt like this was a pretty balanced approach.
• •Diversification, liquidity...

Okay, so I've been wrestling with this more than usual lately, especially with the market looking like a roller coaster designed by a madman. I've got a decent chunk of my personal allocation in physical gold – we're talking a high six-figure sum, mostly coins and some bars, stored in a secure facility, obviously not in my Greenwich home – and then another significant portion in GLD. For the longest time, I felt like this was a pretty balanced approach. Diversification, liquidity... all the usual talking points.

But honestly? The more I read, the more I see the potential for some serious systemic shocks, the more I question my reliance on GLD. There's just something about holding the actual metal, knowing it's tangible and not a derivative, that's incredibly appealing when things get squirrely. My partners at the fund think I'm a bit too conservative leaning into physical so heavily for personal, but I just can't shake this feeling.

I know the arguments about storage costs, insurance, lack of portability for large sums etc., and I've factored all that in. But then I think about the counterparty risk with GLD, the potential for forced redemptions in a true crisis, the tracking error... it just makes me wonder if I should be divesting from the paper stuff completely and just going all-in on physical. I certainly don't want to explain to my wife why our "gold" isn't actually gold if the system really buckles.

Anyone else in a similar boat, trying to decide how much to shift from paper to physical, or vice-versa? What are your personal thresholds for comfortable allocation to each? And on a related note, for those who've made significant shifts, how did you handle the tax implications? I'm always running numbers through that Tax Calculator at goldirablueprint.com, but real-world experience always adds another layer.