Gil has many other uses

Gil has many other uses, such as the Gil Toss ability, which allows the player to damage enemies by throwing money at them. Gil Toss often does great damage, but at the obvious drawback of costing a great deal of gil. In Final Fantasy XIV Gil , gil can be used to bribe monsters to leave the battle as well as entice Yojimbo into attacking enemies. In FF14 Gil, the Turtleshell Choker accessory allows the equipped party member to cast spells using gil instead of MP.

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In FF14 Gil, gil coins come in several colors (and presumably metals), and each bears an image on one side and the value of the coin on the other. In Final Fantasy VI and FFXIV Gil, gil appears as silver coins with a hole through the middle, while in FFXIV Gil
gil coins are gold with a hole. In FF14 Gil, Penelo can briefly be seen holding a pair of coins presumed to be gil, one silver and one gold, with unclear detailed markings on them.

This suggests that gil is loosely based on the Japanese yen (円) or ancient Chinese coins, with FFXIV Gil’s gil coins appearing very similar to yen coins. The yen, along with other Japanese currencies, such as the mon, have holes in some of the coins, a trait dating back to feudal times when coins were carried on string.