[ivell]

There is also economies of scale. Steel is much more useful than gold. This means investments on improving mining and processing will lower the costs in the long run.

[wqaatwt]

Is processing and manufacturing steel actually cheaper than gold at any scale?

Gold is a very easy metal to work with. While iron into steel especially on a large scale isn’t trivial.

I doubt the cost of labor has a meaningful impact on the price of gold.