In economics, the term gold bug has three common meanings:
- an investor who is very bullish in buying the commodity gold (XAU - ISO 4217).
- a person who opposes or criticizes the use of fiat currency and supports a return to the use of the Gold Standard or some other currency system based on the value of gold and other hard assets.
- someone who considers one commodity, usually gold, "the appropriate measure of wealth, regardless of the quantity of other goods and services that it can buy".
The concept, in the third sense, was popularized in the 1896 US Presidential Election, when William McKinley supporters took to wearing gold lapel pins, gold neckties, and gold headbands in a demonstration of support for gold against the "silver menace",