Topic: [2017-03-02]Gold Bug Peter Schiff Calls Bitcoin ‘Digital Fool’s Gold’ (Read 675 times)

I agree.  There are a few tech people left, but they are dwindling.

Slashdot is also the collective hivemind that panned the first iPod, as I recall. They have a less-than-stellar track record for not understanding technology, which is ironic for a self-professed "geek" news source. I don't take any comments there seriously, it may have had its time way back but the userbase now is just a bunch of uninformed shmucks working soon-to-be-disrupted white-collar jobs and being overpaid to do it.

If Peter bought 1000 bitcoin 5 years ago, he would be rich.

I am with kelly's saying bitcoin usefulness is what created demands for it all over the world. Bitcoin is currently trading at 1272dollars as at this moment, peter schiff called it fools of Gold underestimate the impact of bitcoin all over the world this day. Anyway bitcoin has come to stay, yesterday bitcoin price is more than ounce of Gold. This is good news to bitcoiner.

He missed it and now he needs to justify his long time gold love. Let it be
 

Why not both? There is no reason for a binary decision. In your kitchen shelf you aren't storing only beans or only potatoes.
If civilisation seems at risk maybe more gold and lesser bitcoins is adviseable. But we are currently walking into the other direction, technology sphere prospering around the globe.

There is nothing wrong with being a fanboy of gold. We are mostly fanboys of Bitcoin or maybe other cryptocurrency.
At least Schiff is dedicated to his cause so he can produce serious arguments, and I am afraid as much as we want to disagree and praise BTC, he is right in some cases.
Actually apart from that idiotic statement that bitcoin has no intrinsic value, it is hard to argue with his reasoning.

Fools gold.... holding classic gold in case of wars if for fools!  , he just needs a update , and in a world war situstion Internet fails in some parts , I knpow first hand that when youoslavia was bommed , I contacted internet sysadmins, and they were able to get connections true in ways most non techies cant imagine , and that was in the 199x's
Bitcoin is superiour because you can were it whitout detection (memorized seed)  gold is very easy to steal with a ak 47.
so only a westren fool never been in a war could make up this shit.

Everyone knows that Peter Schiff is a gold fanboy since many years but he has a point this time.

Does anybody remember dotcom crash from the early 2000's? If not, you should look into it.

There are some similarities indeed.

Although I think Bitcoin has an intrinsic value and that this intrinsic value is indeed its "usefulness" to satisfy needs (buying goods and services, transferring values in a global manner), Schiff does have some valid arguments. In particular, Bitpay-accepting merchants are really not backing Bitcoin in any way and only use it as a marketing "gimmick", like he states.

To know how large the ecosystem of providers of goods and services really is, the Bitcoin community should really do some research. I suspect a large part of the real "Bitcoin-accepters" are those who trade on decentralized platforms like BitMarkets or OpenBazaar.

There should be also research on methods how the volatility risk could be mitigated without central payment providers. In my opinion, smart contracts (maybe CfDs like Bitshares) should be the way to go.

The market is telling us something for sure.  I think there is room for both bitcoin and gold, perhaps eventually they'll see the benefits and acknowledge they didn't fully understand the benefits.

I went back to look at the slashdot article to see if my memory was correct and it was July 11, 2010,
https://news.slashdot.org/story/10/07/11/1747245/bitcoin-releases-version-03#comments

To be fair, there were plenty of positive and explanatory and understanding comments, but as far as some of the negative ones, I see pretty much the same type of negative comments still nearly 6 years later, things like these:

Schiff is part of the old guard that took autogyros to Siam for investor conferences while a servant shined his spats.

Gold is currently trading at 1,240 per oz - Bitcoin is trading at 1,255 per Bitcoin.

I say let the market decide which is more valuable. And I bet in a few years, the gold bugs will have to capitulate -- if they're still alive, that is.

Lol, no doubt..although I suspect there were a fair number of people who read that first slashdot article, smugly dismissed the idea and did nothing who are kicking themselves right now.  As I recall there was a lot of misinformation and misunderstandings in the discussion.

Some of the "nobodies" that knew 5-8 years ago are probably now wealthier than Peter.

Schiff is right about a lot of things, but he is missing the utility here. 

It is like saying, in 1980, "There are/can be tons of TCP/IP networks, what makes the internet (or even arpanet) so special?  Anyone can build another one, so it has no value."

He is also plainly wrong with this:
"Nobody knew what bitcoin was five or ten years ago."  Lots of people knew what bitcoin was in 2012 (5 years ago) and certainly enough knew in 2010 (slashdot did a story that exposed it to a lot of people in July 2010) and more knew of it in 2011.  That is just factually incorrect. 

And 10 years ago (2007), clearly no one knew what it was since it didn't exist.  That is like saying, "Nobody knew what the internet was 60 years ago," "Nobody knew what the web was 30 years ago," or "Nobody knew what electricity was 5000 years ago."

 

Schiff does have a point but I am still in favor of Bitcoin. However, suppose world war break out, what use would be Bitcoin if all computer systems are down. This is where Gold has the edge.

This week CNBC broadcast a debate between financial markets commentator Brian Kelly, and gold proponent and economist Peter Schiff on the show “Fast Money.” The two finance experts discussed which was a better investment — Bitcoin or gold?

Bitcoin has been a contentious issue for gold bugs since the cryptocurrency was created. Over the past few years, economist Peter Schiff has expressed his opinion that bitcoin has no real value. Schiff’s debate with Brian Kelly is no different as he still believes bitcoins are no more valuable than “beanie babies.” However, CNBC’s Brian Kelly disagrees and thinks bitcoin’s value revolves around its usefulness spurring global demand. The human subjective valuations of gold as a “shiny rock” is the same as bitcoin’s, states Kelly.
Peter Schiff and Brian Kelly Debate: Bitcoin or Gold?

On Fast Money the financial markets news team discussed in detail the benefits of bitcoin investments compared to gold. “What is the better bet going forward gold or bitcoin?” the host of the show asked;

“Well for me obviously it’s Bitcoin,” explains the author and investor Brian Kelly. “Bitcoin is not just digital gold. I think that’s what a lot of people get wrong here. It’s a technology platform that fintech is being built on top of — It is a once in a generation investment opportunity similar to the internet, growing just as fast if not faster. It’s the internet of money. I’m not alone on this. Everybody’s involved in it — the Federal Reserve just released a paper on it and has a working group. Bank of England is involved in it, fourteen of the top thirty banks have active projects going on. JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, CME, and NYSE are all involved in projects as we speak building on top of this technology.”

So let’s just say — let’s try to put a value on Bitcoin, and let’s say all those things don’t happen. Even though there are so many people working on it and building on top of the platform, giving it use cases — Let’s say it is digital gold and for some reason it just happens to get one percent of the market share that gold gets, bitcoin would be $4,500 and is trading at $1,200 right now — If it got five percent of the market share it would be at $22,000. That to me is a winning investment.
Schiff: ‘Bitcoin is Digital Fool’s Gold Similar to Beanie Babies’

As usual, the gold bug in Schiff remains unfazed by the comments of bitcoin supporters. In fact, during the debate, Schiff calls Brian Kelly a member of a “cult” who is obsessed with the digital currency.

“Well it’s not digital gold I agree,” details Schiff’s rebuttal. “It’s digital ‘fools gold’. You know today’s bitcoins are like beanie babies. The whole principle behind bitcoin was to replicate the properties that made gold uniquely suited to be money and act as an alternative to fiat currencies. But it’s not really viable as a money — I mean it is a potential medium of exchange, but it’s not a store of value. Meanwhile, nobody really uses it as a medium of exchange it’s just a speculative asset. People own it because they think it’s going to be more valuable in the future but it has no intrinsic value.”

Brian Kelly quickly interjects stating, “150,000 merchants worldwide accept bitcoin, including Expedia. [Bitcoin] has 300,000 transactions a day.” However, Schiff disagrees that merchants actually accept the digital currency. Schiff believes this is a “gimmick” and these companies who accept bitcoin are actually accepting dollars or euros.

“No, no. No merchants accept bitcoin,” explains Schiff. “They work with a company called Bitpay. They accept dollars. There are no merchants that price their merchandise in bitcoin. It’s impossible. It’s a gimmick to try and pretend.”

People are using it to circumvent currency laws to transfer money out of China. They are not really using it in commerce. You find me a merchant that is pricing in bitcoin. They are pricing in dollars or euros. — The volatility is too great on a daily basis to really price it. Gold had a long history of intrinsic value before it was money. People desired it for its properties, and it was very scarce, so it had a lot of value because its unique properties were hard to come by. Nobody knew what bitcoin was five or ten years ago. It didn’t exist. It has no value other than the fact that maybe you can use it to exchange it for something else.
‘Gold is Just a Shiny Rock’

Kelly counters arguing that bitcoin has the same usefulness that gold has. “Bitcoin has the exact same value as gold has,” Kelly shouts above Schiff’s commentary. “It has the same exact value as gold has… Gold is just a rock. It doesn’t have any special values. It’s just a shiny rock.”

Schiff responds: “There is no limit to the number of digital currencies that can be created. There are hundreds of others. Why doesn’t anyone use Myspace? Because somebody came up with Facebook.”
The latest Fast Money debate on CNBC shows once again Schiff will not give bitcoin a chance as an investment, especially when compared to gold. Schiff has appeared many times on CNBC stating that bitcoin is basically worthless in his eyes. During the bitcoin price rise in 2013, Schiff said bitcoin was in a bubble and is similar to a “modern-day tulip mania.”

Notably, Schiff’s precious metals company has been accepting bitcoin for gold purchases since 2014.
https://news.bitcoin.com/peter-schiff-bitcoin-digital-fools-gold/