I'm a firm believer of sound money, especially gold/silver just wondering how people think this compares to Bitcoin. I do have a few BTC but only really to take advantage of a price move up so I can get more metal. I don't like the intangible nature of Bitcoin and not being so tech savvy it would be a concern having a lot of wealth stored in it. Ideas?
BTC's intangibility is also it's strength. Gold's tangibility is also it's weakness.
I believe that Bitcoin is honest money. One thing that convinced me that Bitcoin is here to stay is that it is
it is harder to counterfeit than gold. It exists in the mathematical domain: which means given the transaction ledger, you can prove whether or not a specific "coin" has been spent or not.
If you want to do transactions electronically, Bitcoin is better. Gold-backed payment systems are by definition a fractional reserve (1/1 is a fraction
) They also
represent central points of failure.
However, in its actions from 2006-2008 the U.S. Treasury Department in conjunction with the United States Department of Justice stretched the definition of money transmitter in the USA Patriot Act to include any system that allows transfer of any kind of value from one person to another, not merely national currency or cash. Using this new interpretation they then proceeded to prosecute the USA-based gold systems, E-gold (and later e-Bullion) under the USA Patriot Act for not having money transmitter licenses, even though these companies had previously been cooperating with regulatory authorities and told they did not fall under the definition of money transmitter. The charge of not having a money transmitter license was eventually dropped against e-bullion. Several years later FINCEN further expanded this definition to apply to foreign companies allowing US persons to open accounts, which forced the Jersey based Goldmoney.com to suspend the ability to transfer value from one holder to another in December 2011
If the expected collapse of the US dollar knocks out large portions of the Internet, Bitcoin may not be worth the paper it is printed on. In that case, having actual physical metal may be more useful. I have seen speculation that guns and food may be more valuable than shiny metal though.