For years, your gold IRA asks nothing of you.
The metal sits in a vault. Statements arrive. You pay the fees. Gold does whatever gold does, and you do not have to have an opinion about it.
Then you turn 73, and the arrangement changes.
A formula starts telling you how much money has to leave the account every year. Not a suggestion. A requirement, with a penalty attached for missing it.
And the formula has one characteristic that makes it awkward for physical metal specifically: it does not know what you own.
It does not check the price of gold. It does not care that your smallest bar is worth thirty thousand dollars. It produces a number, and you have to produce that number by December 31.
Which turns a passive holding into an annual operation, and for some accounts it turns into an expensive one.