Across Turkey, generations of families have quietly tucked gold into drawers and gardens rather than bank vaults — a rational inheritance from a history of currency crises and institutional failures. Now, government officials are confronting an old tension: what is wise for the individual household may quietly starve the collective economy. The billions in gold that never enter the banking system cannot be lent, invested, or multiplied, leaving policymakers to ask how a nation rebuilds trust that history has so thoroughly eroded.