The Gold Chest is a naturally-generated chest, with various loot as its contents. Each chest includes one special item, as well as some coins and other more common items. Gold Chests are found in Underground Cabins in the Underground, Cavern, and Underground Jungle, and are also found as Locked Gold Chests in the Dungeon. Locked Gold Chests require one Golden Key each to open.
Apart from the initial items, Gold Chests function identically to other chests. Removing all items from a Gold Chest will allow it to be freed or broken with a pickaxe or drill. It can then be picked up, placed, and used just like any other chest, with 40 slots of storage space. There are only three minor differences to other chests: Gold Chests cannot be crafted and are only generated on world creation at the random locations; they can also be sold to an NPC at 10, which is more than the standard chest, which only sells for 1. Gold Chests have a sparkle effect when exposed to a light source, similar to coins.
The loot for any given chest is determined by the location in which it is found. Each chest contains a single primary item and an assortment of randomly chosen common items. The primary item is first placed in the chest, then each "set" of common items is checked to see whether or not it will be added. If a set is chosen to be added, a single item from the list is added to the chest.
Sets are displayed in the list below divided by horizontal borders. For example, the Wooden Arrow and the Shuriken both reside in the same set, so they will never both appear in the same chest.
A Golden Chest without a Cabin can spawn above underground (but not really on the surface) and can still contain its regular loot, although this is very rare.
Gold Chests that spawn within 250 blocks of the bottom of the world will generate the same common items as Shadow Chests.
The Lava Charm has a lower spawn chance than other primary items, at 2.5%, and can only be found in areas where lava starts appearing in a normal Cavern biome.
The Extractinator similarly has only a 5% chance, though it can spawn in any Gold Chest.
Gold Chests in the Dungeon are locked, and require one Golden Key each to be opened.
Regular Wooden Chests in the Dungeon will always spawn with one Golden Key, along with height-dependent common items.
Gold Chests in the Dungeon will contain one of the following unique items, as well as some of the common Gold Chest items listed above, depending on the height in which they were found: Underground or Caverns. They also have a 12.5% chance of containing a Bone Welder and a 33.3% chance of containing a Shadow Key on PC version, Console version, Mobile version, and tModLoader version. See the talk page for information on the distribution of the items among all Gold Chests in the Dungeon.
Aside from the primary items listed here, Gold Chests in the Pyramid will also contain common Gold Chest items listed above, depending on the height in which they were found: Underground or Caverns.
Floating islands found in worlds generated with the "For the worthy" secret seed will contain locked Gold Chests instead of the usual Skyware Chests, a reference to older versions of Terraria. The chests will still contain the standard Skyware Chest loot.
Golden Chests generating in the Underground and Cavern layers now have a chance to have the new Mace flail as a main item. They also no longer have the Enchanted Boomerang, which is now craftable instead.
Locked Golden Chests in the Dungeon can now have the Valoryoyo as a new main loot item.
Opening a Gold Chest for the first time will now trigger the "I Am Loot" achievement, while opening a Locked Gold Chest in the Dungeon will trigger the "Dungeon Heist" achievement.
No longer normally generated outside Underground Cabins and the Dungeon.
Now only spawn in the purity Underground and Cavern. While their loot tables will be the same in other Underground biomes (with the exception of the Ice biome), they will be replaced by those biomes' respective chests – Mushroom Chests in the Glowing Mushroom biome, Rich Mahogany Chests in the Underground Jungle, etc.