Topic: Bitcoin vs Gold: The Age Old Debate - page 2. (Read 4175 times)

What people forget is that Bitcoin was only at $30 at the start of 2013. Do the math on that.

Who taught you math?

1200 to 200 is a loss of 1000 or an 83% loss.

Even if you do the math from a 1000/200 ratio, that's 500% not 600%.

-C.

I hope so. But what if when the time comes that bitcoin's price is high enough, the price of commodities and expenses tied with living is also high? I mean, would there be any change at all if the cost of living also rise?

Great table. Presses on things that differentiate bitcoin from any other currencies. You can clearly see that bitcoin dominates among them, but still doesn't get the attention of the majority which makes it a 'nope' for average people.

Adoption rate, y u so slow?

Yes it will, in 10 years most coins will be mined and price will naturally stabilize at a really higher price than today's.

Not to be a jerk, it just hurts my brain: from 1200 to 200 is down 83 1/3 %

If you want to save, it is better to save in something the central banks cannot print.

That's a problem on the cryptocurrencies world too, that's why there are some new cryptos like NuBits (https://nubits.com/) that try to stabilize the price (1$ USD = 1 NuBits) but the advantages of cryptocurrencies are far superior...

Imagine that 1 bitcoin = 0.01 USD, it does not matter, you can move money over the internet with low fees ( as lo as 0.0001 BTC at the moment of this post) while you cant move gold so fast nor so far without paying massive fees or waiting days. For more information: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#Economy

By the way remember that bitcoin is not only a currency but a protocol, the public ledger (blockchain) and the advantages that come with it (satoshi proof - https://github.com/ligi/SatoshiProof) are too valuable; Don't forget governments could issue their own cryptocurrencies and gain the advantages from bitcoin and only changing the nature of a decentralized system to a centralized one. This also solves the big and long never ending problem of counterfeit money and money laundering.

Gold demand is driven by fear. people aren't scared? gold goes down
Opportunity cost is too high to hold when there are better alternatives

Well bitcoin can aswell but bitcoin went from 1200 to 200 in a year thats a 600% not 50%

all markets have downtrends. gold didn't reach its 1980s high until 25 years later.

if gold can lose 50% of its value and have a multi-year downtrend, why can't bitcoin?

If they try to seize bitcoins, they will get an even lower percentage. 

At higher level of abstraction, money is just a consensus/protocol of transaction medium that lots of people agreed upon, the purpose of this protocol is to store value and delay the consumption until a later suitable occasion
 
Due to these requirements, the transaction medium must be durable, widely accepted and can store value. In fact anything meet these requirements can be used as money

From the jewelry and industry point of view, there are other metals like platinum with better characteristics than gold, but since they enter the scene much later, people never used them as transaction medium. This proved that the essential of gold is its widely established acceptance, its physical characteristics are not as important

On internet, currently there is no payment method that is universally accepted, bitcoin is the first currency that enables instant global payment regardless of country and banking infrastructure. For internet generation, the consensus is taking shape now

However, people already get used to use their domestic currency to do all kinds of transaction, especially valuation. First converting to another currency and then spend sounds complicated, if some new service exclusively require bitcoin payment, then it might bring more attention, otherwise the usage will still be limited like gold, as an investment instead of transaction medium

...

jones techbit wrote that the Feds could take the gold (by Executive Order, a la 1933).

They can try.  It is estimated that they only got some 10% in 1933.

Also, hardly anyone trusts the government anymore, especially owners of gold.  Gold owners would be unlikely to give it up.  There is also a high correlation between gold owners and gun owners...

Seize the guns and the gold?

Molon Labe!


EDIT: same for seizing the Bitcoin.......

The chart misses the crucial point which is that gold is very widely and tightly held, so many people think of it as money, not so many see bitcoin that way. In addition, gold is the other big asset on central banks balance sheets in addition to foreign currencies, it will be used to recapitalise nations after the next crisis I think we all see coming.

Yeah, right. Could we say threat to power?

The stability of the bitcoin dropped a lot since the destruction of important exchanges but it will probably rise again when more people and institutions adopt it like mega for instance that said they will be accepting bitcoins

Executive orders usually have to justified - "national importance", "threat to nation", etc.

Why not?  They are stable now, this year pretty stable

Even if bitcoin exists for a long time, even then it will probab;y never become enough stable.