Topic: Bitcoin VS Gold :who is the winner ? (Read 1458 times)

The assumption I think a lot of people have is that if we lose internet, that society will just roll back to pre-internet days, like to the 1950's or something.  I am guessing that is a fallacy. 

If we lose electricty, internet, communication, water and gas (they are all connected), we don't back in time to the 1950's.   We go back in time to the dark ages.  There won't be farmers markets either to trade gold for.  Again, if the farmer has veggies and a house, but no gasoline, how does he get those veggies to the market, and even if he has gold, then what will he use the gold for? All the other shops are closed.  If society loses electricity, internet, and utilities permanently then it is going to suck bad.  Only the self-sufficient types will make it.  Even the preppers might not fair well.  If society looses these things temporarily, people will still just use cash.  Seriously, nobody is going to be walking around with gold coins, they would just use dollars.  Without the internet and smart phones, people wouldn't even know what a gold coin is worth anyway, everybody would be wildly guessing.

These types of scenarios are an all or nothing type of deal.  When society devolves and rolls back, it doesn't just get to roll back a few years, it rolls back all the way and starts over from scratch again.  It goes back to families growing their own food and defending it and themselves with guns.  Yes, it can build much faster because the path to build up again and way is known, but it has to start from the beginning again.  In such a scenerio, you keep your gold coins, and the farmer will keep his bag of potatoes, and after you starve in the winter and die, he will go to your house and pick them up.  Then he will have potatoes and gold, but again, where will he spend you gold coins?  I am not even sure if he will bother to pick them up. 

i think they're both great, but bitcoin has more utility, much more.

So in the end i'd expect bitcoin to be much more valuable than gold ever was.

Gold has a higher monetary value, but silver has a higher intrinsic value. More silver is used in electronics, and silver is a natural antiseptic used especially in the medical fields. It's also used a lot in photography. Gold does not have all these properties. One thing gold can be used for other than jewelry, is to block certain types of radiation.

It's really best to own all three imo Gold,Silver and Bitcoin. Bitcoin is great until the power goes out for a week and you can't use your coins. Gold and Silver are great for situations similar to that but it can be difficult storing and moving lots of gold and silver securely and anonymously across borders. Like others have said they complement each other.

apples v. oranges

Exactly the whole Bitcoin vs. Precious metals thing is a false dichotomy. I love both.

Gold doesn't make very good money. It's good as a store of value though. Bitcoin wins as a currency on that front at least.

There is no "Gold vs. Bitcoin". Do not allow your opponent to frame the argument this way. No one has to give up gold to use Bitcoin. You don't have to choose one or the other. Gold is good for some applications, Bitcoin is good for other applications. You can do both.

The only thing superior to cryptocurrency as a form of money, is post-capitalism. When that comes around you'll forget about gold, too.

How can you say that? If something far superior comes along it could be easily forgotten about.

Bitcoin is a digital asset and will exist as long as the internet exists. That means Bitcoin will be with us as long as modern civilization exists. Back up your wallets and you won't have a problem.

Therefore Bitcoin is infinitely more durable than gold, by any meaningful definition of durability.

Let me put that into recent historical perspective for you:



1 Bitcoin year = 1 silver century



Notice how these two graphs are roughly inversions of each other...

Now I ask you this, is it that silver has increased in value? Or the dollar has decreased? Perhaps both?

...

Re "Store of Value", the Central Banks have already decided re between gold & silver.  They chose gold!

I choose Pt over Ag even though they are both useful in industry, but Pt is more "value dense" (more $, less space).  I wrote that Pt would be for "optimists" as Pt is used in catalytic converters (etc.), and so if the world continues its general march to ever increasing wealth (albeit slowly, with its ups & downs), platinum and even palladium (an interesting metal in its own right) will continue to grow in value.  Those two are much rarer than gold.

Silver would be more valuable in a SHTF, especially "junk silver" (pre-1965 dimes & quarters, easy for Americans to recognize).  But, once you have more than a few thousand dollars worth of silver, it takes up space!

I was wondering about this. I just found out about a company called KaratBars that allows you to change depreciating currency into appreciating gold assets, in piece of pure quality 1g gold. Conveniently sized for transactional trade. I'm doing research about this, and the more I look into it, the more interesting it gets.

This video explains what this is about and how it works
http://www.mygoldkaratbar.com/karatbars-fundamentals/

If this interests you and you want to sign up under me, you can sign up for a free account here (it's not recognized as a MLM company in any country but they do reward you for referring others. But in the end, all money invested is turned into gold so it really doesn't cost anything)
https://karatbars.com/signup.php?s=etiennecharland

So now here is my question about this.

The advantage of gold is that it holds real value, and throughout history, as every single fiat currency went down to zero, people have always reverted back to gold and silver for exchange.

However, it really is not convenient for online transaction! Especially for me who works with clients worldwide online, and lives in various countries. BitCoins, however, are very convenient for online transactions. But it's not backed up by anything, it doesn't hold any value in and of itself.

Technically, would there be a way to combine gold holding real value and being impossible to print, and BitCoins which allows online transactions? I think both have their advantages and disadvantages, and are complimentary. Perhaps they would both need to be used in parallel?

Who cares about young ppl? If someone would take a $700 smartphone (what will worth only $500 after three month and fity bucks on ebay after a year) over a $700 piece of gold will deserve the worst fate .
Gold will always worth something. You can always sell it to the nearest jewelry if needed and even in a SHTF scenario you can go to the local farmers and you will have a chance to exchange your wedding ring to a bag of potatoes . Until people think that after the crisis everything gonna be alright again they will accept gold. Not quite so sure about smartphones and paper wallets.

What does it have that gold doesnt? I guess everybody sees silver as second best to gold.

i dont like hoarding space waster

I think bitcoin wins. Most people wont realise it yet but they hopfully will eventually.

As a currency gold is better in every conceivable way, but gold has that worthy intrinsic value. I get the comparison, but I think it's silly comparing them as they're two entirely different things.

I honestly believe that we are so dependent on technology that if the internet goes down, gold won't even be worth anything.  If the internet goes down, that means no electricity and no utilities of any kind anywhere.  At that point I wouldn't trade a gun, bag full of food, and medicine for even a handful gold coins.  Gold coins aren't going to feed or protect and sustain a person for very long. 

If it was 30 years ago before tech became integral in our lives, yes, I would say gold was the way to go.  Not right now.  I know lots of teenagers that would much rather have a $700 smartphone than a $700 gold chain.  In fact if it was an either or scenario, I don't even know one young person that would take the gold chain over a smartphone.  Gold just isn't valuable to young people anymore.

I think Bitcoin is the clear winner.

gold always will be.
how do you spend bitcoins with no infrastructure or power?