Disclosure up front, because you deserve it: I have served on the board of directors of Monetary Metals since 2018. I am also a shareholder and a client—I earn interest on my own gold through the company’s leasing and lending program. Read everything below with that in mind.
Yesterday, Monetary Metals & Co. announced it has been named to the 2026 “Inc. 5000” for the second consecutive year, at No. 408 overall and No. 34 among financial services companies. Last year it ranked 677. This year’s placement puts it in the top ten percent of the list.
Here’s a link to our latest press release.
That kind of announcement is easy to skim past. Company wins award, company issues press release, everyone moves on. So let me explain why I think this particular number is worth your attention—and it isn’t because I sit on the board.
The Inc. 5000 measures one thing: revenue growth. Companies are ranked on percentage revenue growth from 2022 to 2025. Not valuation, not funding raised, not press coverage. Revenue. Actual money paid by actual customers over a three-year window.
And that’s the point. Moving from 677 to 408 while the pool of qualifying companies stays the same means the growth accelerated—Monetary Metals grew faster in the most recent measurement period than in the prior one. Second-year appearances on this list are harder than first-year appearances, because you’re compounding against a larger base.
Which tells you something that a press release can’t say about itself: people are lining up for this service. Not just talking about it. Investing their precious metal in it.
What the company actually does
If you’re a newer reader, here’s the model in one paragraph.
Monetary Metals lets investors earn a yield on physical gold or silver, paid in gold or silver. That gold doesn’t sit idle in a vault—it’s leased to businesses across the precious metals supply chain: mints, miners, refiners, jewelers. Those businesses need gold as working inventory and would otherwise finance it with dollars at whatever the credit market charges. Instead, they lease metal and pay interest in metal. The investor’s ounce count grows.
CEO Keith Weiner put it this way in the press release:
“Monetary Metals being in the top 10% on the list of the fastest growing companies reflects growing demand for our new approach to gold ownership. We enable investors to earn a yield on their gold, while providing financing to businesses across the precious metals industry. This milestone is a true testament to the relentless commitment of our team who work tirelessly every day to bring our unique vision of gold to life.”
Why this milestone matters
Longtime readers know my position. I advocate owning gold as a way to accumulate wealth over the long term, because gold is the asset that, unlike fiat money, cannot be created by keystroke.
But gold has always carried one honest objection: it doesn’t pay you anything. A bar in a vault produces no income. You pay storage. You wait. Your protection against debasement costs you a fee to store it.
That objection is what makes the yield model interesting, and here’s the part people miss. Earning interest in dollars on your gold doesn’t solve the problem—it just converts your gold into a dollar-denominated income stream, which reintroduces the exact currency risk you bought gold to escape. Earning interest in gold is a different thing entirely. Your ounces grow. You are still measuring in the unit you actually trust.
That’s not a yield product with a gold theme. It’s gold functioning as capital.
The larger point
Here’s what I think this ranking is really evidence of.
For most of the modern era, gold has been treated as a museum piece—something you buy when you’re frightened, hold when you’re patient, and sell when you need dollars. A store of value and nothing more. The financial system moved on and left it in the vault.
But gold wasn’t always that. For most of recorded history, gold was finance. It was lent, borrowed, paid interest, cleared trade, and financed production. The idea that metal can only sit still is a recent development, and a strange one.
What Monetary Metals has built is infrastructure for gold to work again. And a company doesn’t grow into the top ten percent of the Inc. 5000 by convincing people of an idea. It grows because businesses on the other side of the trade—the mints and refiners and jewelers who need metal to operate—find it a better deal than borrowing dollars. That’s the tell. The demand is commercial, not ideological.
Meanwhile, the monetary backdrop keeps making the case on its own. Central banks have been accumulating gold at a pace not seen in decades. The debate over gold’s regulatory treatment in the banking system is live. Sovereign debt burdens keep growing in every major currency bloc. Whatever you think comes next, more people are going to be asking what gold can do besides sit there.
What I’d tell you
I’ve served on this board for eight years. I’ve watched Keith Weiner and his team build the firm with energy, ingenuity, and—the part that matters most to me—complete integrity. I’m proud to be associated Monetary Metals, and I don’t say that lightly about anything.
I’m also a client. My own metal is in the program, earning interest. I mention that not as a testimonial but as the honest disclosure: I’m not recommending something I’ve declined to do myself.
If you already own gold and it’s sitting somewhere costing you storage fees, the question worth asking is whether it should be working instead. The company is at monetary-metals.com.
As always, none of this is investment advice, and I’m not your advisor. Do your own work, understand what you’re buying, and size accordingly.
But congratulations to Keith and the whole team. Four hundred and eight—top 10%—is a hell of a number.
– HardmoneyJim, August 11, 2026
Republished from “Gold Is Becoming Finance Again,” written by Jim Brown and published on his Substack, HardmoneyJim, on August 11, 2026.
Put your gold to work at Monetary Metals
If you’re wondering whether your gold should be working, Monetary Metals can help you better understand what role earning a yield could play in your long-term goals.
Speak with a member of our team today to explore your options.
