The only ones who have been panicking are the people who don't understand how a market system works. Nothing is a truly "safe" investment. Everything rises and falls in value relative to other things. The problem is that the goldbugs had a lot of people convinced that gold was somehow exempt from that, that the fact that its supply cannot be expanded ensured that it would never, in the long term, lose value. Of course, that neglects demand and the value of everything around gold. Gold, outside of corrosion-proof cable connectors and jewelry, has very little practical use. So, with neutral supply, and neutral demand, it becomes a trader's toy, something that people think is valuable but, in reality, isn't.