You can buy small quantities of coins off dealers for a very modest spread plus the cost of insured postage. I have a few sovereigns at the back of a drawer from the 2008 crisis which have basically held their value. There's no magic to it, it's just a nice shiny object.
Converting back to cash at a reasonable rate is probably a lot harder.
You compare the convenience of a download against having an asset with a few millenia of history in your physical possession (which is not without its own risks) and pick your poison.
Gold is one of the easiest things to smuggle: it is compact and can be easily melted, painted over, made to look like a cheap tourist souvenir, mixed with other components, etc. and then recovered at the destination.
That does not mean that it is trivial to smuggle gold out, but if you need to do so, the chance of success is pretty high. Much higher than smuggling out fiat money held in a government-regulated account during capital controls. My 2c.
