Bitcoin Forum

244,000 metric tons of gold has been discovered to date, 55,000 tons of gold are left.

But there is still a lot of gold left in the universe. There is gold on asteroids for example. One day these will be minable. So the gold supply is not as limited as some may think.

However, gold is hard to move around, weighs a lot, it's hard to sell or buy, it's not practicable.

With BTC it's another story. We all know there are only 21,000,000 coins and 3-4 millions are already lost forever.

There is no Bitcoin in the whole Universe, except on Planet Earth.

BTC is scarcer than gold. I think one day 1 BTC will enter the $xxx,xxx zone then the $x,xxx,xxx HODL BTC

While this is of course true I think it’s important to note that there are many more differences when it comes to comparing bitcoin and gold. Personally I can’t stand this comparison and don’t understand why so many people are so quick to compare the two. Gold is a physical asset, a metal, and used for a lot more things than bitcoin is, such as use in cars, electronics, jewelry etc.

To be honest jewelries are the only real usage I see for gold myself. I suppose we can't wear a BTC as a necklace.

Lots are lost, but much less than 3-4 million and only a fraction of those are provably lost. So, in the far future, they can re-enter the circulation. Especially the early P2PK outputs that have revealed their public key; those are likely to be accessed with quantum computing overtime.

It's simple. Both have store-of-value characteristics. You don't compare them as metals nor as "networks", but as hard money.

This graph shows the world production of gold:

https://i.imgur.com/rgJgeW4.png

You can see how it's clearly not scarce.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is designed to be scarce. There's now only less than 10% left to be mined, ever.

Because of the large mass of gold existence even on only earth, gold is considered not to have a limited supply.

Definitely, but gold is still a safe haven asset, and have the highest marketcap of all assets in the world. Although, I can not go for gold when bitcoin is existing.

This is just like the Peter Schiff (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5356841.msg57795821#msg57795821) argument. Yes, gold is used for a lot of things like jewelries and the likes, but who cares when it comes to giving good return. If I invest on bitcoin I expect more return than gold, yet the investment is easy for me because I can do it with nobody knowing I am even investing in bitcoin, unlike gold that is physical, I can buy and hold bitcoin right from my home.

And gold being physical is more of a flaw than an advantage, imo (security, portability, divisibility, etc) — and I'm pretty sure a lot of the more younger folks would agree. I used to think that gold being physical is a huge advantage, until I became more and more financially literate throughout the years and I want less and less physical stuff and I'm more interested in digital intangible stuff(bitcoin, stocks, etc).


Not to mention that gold's physical use is just a small percentage. Most of it's 'use' is for bragging rights or to "flex" — to show that you have some money. And obviously it's scarcity, which bitcoin is better at.

I don’t know which formula is used by those who give estimates of how much gold is still underground, but I hope it’s not something similar to what led us to speculate that 3-4 million BTC was lost. By this, I mean that this number is the result of an analysis that concluded that all the BTC that did not move x years was lost.


It depends on the quantities, but I don't see a problem in transporting 1 kg of gold or a little more than that, it fits in an ordinary handbag - and it's worth 2 BTC at the moment. As for selling gold, I personally have no problem with that, there is a physical store on every corner that buys gold, or I can even sell gold by sending it by a special courier service to a company that buys gold.

Of course, I have no doubt that Bitcoin has its practicality when it comes to storage and transfer, but not everything is so impractical when it comes to gold. Still, I speak from my personal experience, it may be really difficult for someone to buy or sell gold, but for some, the problem is how to buy or sell Bitcoin - I have witnessed this many times.

Norway doesn't even have gold reserves anymore because, according to them, it's not a great investment. They only kept a few historical gold bars:


This story also shows how inconvenient it is to have a large amount of gold:


There are countless of examples of how inconvenient it is to transport and make sure you have real gold instead of fake gold:


Gold just feels like such an ancient method to store value. Bitcoin is so much better in pretty much every way.

Lol... I guess we would have seen musicians with them BTC teeth.  ;D

Well, BTC and gold have got lots of differences and similarities too. More notably, we could say BTC is indid following the gold path. In the senses that, it started as money but its lack of proper used case has made it more of an asset. Gold stands an asset now which ever form it is found. You could resell when ever and still get the value.

Looking at scarcity, with bitcoin been held by only a handful of individuals, it is indeed scares and not at its fullest yet as, the demand on it is only within a few for now but, would be more in time and so would the price appreciation be at the apex.

How do you even compare the scarcity of those two things?
It's one BTC against a ton of gold, a kilo an ounce, or a milligram of gold against one satoshi?
What is scarcer, 0.002 BTC or 300 grams per living human?

Also, I find it weird to mention the remaining supply, for gold is ~20% and for Bitcoin is ~10%, that's not such a huge difference, and if we talk about lost coins, shouldn't we take about lost gold also? Tons of jewelry are lost each year, gold that can't be recycled after being used in components, or is simply not worth recycling due to the quantities.

I never understood this competition between bitcoin and gold, each has its own pro and cons, bitcoin does a lot of things better than gold but at the same time, it can't be used in tens of cases where gold simply rules. If it weren't like that gold wouldn't be worth a penny now, but, well, it does!

Yes bitcoin is more scarce than gold. That's a true statement! But  if you look at the acceptability of Gold and bitcoin, gold is a clear winner. Scarcity alone doesn't make something costlier. It has be adopted and accepted widely. That's how you can bet on its future value.

Bitcoin is a very new asset class compared to gold. It has a long way to go! So instead of drawing a comparison between these two assets, let's help in bitcoin adoption.

There's always the unstoppable comparison between bitcoin and gold. I agree with the argument that bitcoin is scarcer than gold and the fact that it's near to the supply limit but, it will take a hundred years before the last bitcoin is mined.
But the world isn't yet ready for its massive adoption or if it does, we're already starting to see that progress. I'd say that bitcoin is a more convenient asset class than gold.

As of now the acceptability of BTC is  not too wide. If its the basis for the comparison, gold is prbably preferred.

Thew world.however is preparing to go digital which if currencies will be back to gold standard like what China and Russia plans to be. I think digital currencies backed by gold and BTC will be accepted as medium of exchange.

Gold at least is for sure more scarce than other metals/resources. I remember when they were saying we were running out of oil and then they kept discovering more and more deposits, without even mentioning diamonds that are one of the biggest lies ever.

People sooner or later will get more used to bitcoin as something that is digitally scarse, I understand that for the moment may be something difficult to understand/accept.

I believe many lost gold would be found, just in my opinion.

I am also surprised for someone to compare the gold that has been mined when the earth if full of gold and there are hard to reach place for mining gold like earth crust. If what I have read in the past is true, the gold in the earth crust can cover the whole surface of the earth in 4 meters thick. If the earth crust is not possible to reach or humans can not advanced technology to, to mine gold, how about the gold under water, under the ocean, which is very far more than the gold on the surface of the earth, but, that none has been mined before, it could be possible in the future that technology could advance to the extent those gold under oceans could be mined, but that is just my thought, I can be wrong about it.

How about the gold existing on the earth surface, scientists give estimates, but the gold existing on the surface can still be more, if there is estimation of 122 billion metric tons of gold on the earth surface, and only 165,000 metric tons are yet mined, I think there is still enough gold on earth surface to still be considered unlimited. I may be wrong, I will like your take on this, but I do not believe in the saying that only little amount of gold are not yet mined, it is still unlimited.

That is one pro Bitcoin has over gold, but remember that if you must speculate with Bitcoin you have to expect great ROI in the long run, as Bitcoin doesn't really maintain its value for a long period of time like gold, it is volatile, and short term investors sometimes lose their funds and do not make any returns, gold on the other hand is a store of value/safe haven asset, and that is one pro gold has over Bitcoin. I am just trying to point out that the two have advantages over the other.
Gold is physical, but you could still own gold and nobody would know you do so, it is up to you, there are Bitcoin users who tell everyone they own Bitcoins as well, i think this point depends a whole lot on the user/how they use their asset.

I could start with the fact that's not even 100% certain how much gold is still available to be mined. I don't know how accurate the current estimations are.
Then, yes, gold does exist in space, and I would not be surprised if it would get attempted to be mined from there, if it will be proven to be more useful than just getting hoarded by the richer entities (especially since such a move could melt its current price).

Bitcoin has kinda same problem: if people stops hoarding it, the price may go lower than most of us would like. It doesn't have to be mined from outer space.


While I do agree that Bitcoin is scarcer than the total gold in the universe, especially according to our perception, I would not try to prove this because.. what to compare: kg with BTC, gram with satoshi, atom with.. what? since "tomorrow" the community could decide that one satoshi is too big (compared to whatever paper money) and we need more digits after the decimal point, and 16 looks just fine for the job.


This goes to speculation area ;)

To me the fact that we know exactly how much bitcoin will exist and how much is left to mine makes bitcoin a unique currency, after all we do not know how much gold is really out there, there are estimations about the gold left to mine but there could be more or less gold than the estimations.

And as you mention in the case our technology reaches a certain point then the gold in space could become available causing its supply to increase tremendously, while the supply of bitcoin could only increase if there was a change on the source code, which is something that will not happen.

I was going to ask this same question. How accurate could the amount of unmined gold be determined?
Is it the same data that was used to calculate how old the earth is and when the earth will stop existing?

Talking about gold scarcity. Gold can be refined, it can be reformed or reshaped and it is still a gold. It is natural.

Bitcoin in the other hand is created by man, and a btc converted to usdt is lost (I don't know if this analogy is correct)

OP, When we say about scarcity, we also say about availability. If I want to buy $100m worth of btc in few minutes time, I could get, is it also applicable to gold?

I don't think there's any competition going on between Bitcoin and Gold. Gold has been a treasure for thousands of years whereas BTC is not even up to two decades.

I think the focus should be on making Bitcoin as popular and acceptable as Gold because as of today Gold is still miles ahead of Bitcoin in terms of adoption and popularity and many people still don't understand what Bitcoin is all about.

indeed in this case it is quite true but in this case I don't think it is suitable for comparison although indeed in these 2 things they have something in common, namely they are suitable for investment.
but for the supply of btc and gold maybe I don't want to compare things like this because they are not very suitable for comparison.
gold is a real wealth of nature today and indeed their existence is enough to make people suddenly rich but in this case bitcoin is still something that is risky and indeed even though bitcoin's strength is far superior in terms of volatility but the comparison of things like this is too far to compare anything unrelated

Dont forget Gold has its uses in Medical, Electronics and Scientific areas.


Scarcity wise Golds supply is indeed unknown. Nobody knows when the next vein or
large deposit is going to be discovered, and Bitcoin is obviously the opposite to this.

Why do we not compare Bitcoin to Palladium or Platinum instead of Gold?

Actually, if you search rare metals on google, Gold doesnt register!

gold is the result of natural wealth, no human knows how much gold is still in the bowels of the earth while btc is made by satoshi with a certain amount so comparing btc with gold in my opinion is unethical.

The lost gold must also be counted. Because gold miners only mine where there is a pool. Gold will not be recycled when it becomes dust flakes during the forging process or is formed into jewelry.

Talking about scarcity, it's still weird that the gold stock predictions (which you think) are immeasurable but banks don't try to balance the value of each minted dollar with the actual amount of gold backing.

Bitcoin is 21M in total supply
Gold is infinite in total supply

Scarcer or not, people can do the simple comparison between them. In addition, it is more convenient when you use Bitcoin for transactions, payments, etc. It is portable too with your wallet, a backup in a notebook, paper sheet, steel sheet, USB, hardware wallets ...

You can not carry your gold bars around and say it is safe for your gold bars as well as your life.

Yeah, one day it will be mineable. Probably after a thousand years. ;D
After several centuries, the people will have so advanced technologies, that they won't be needing precious metals like gold and silver anymore.
Mining gold will become pointless, because gold will become cheap or worthless. Mining gold on asteroids and other planets will be 100 times more expensive, which would mean 100 times more pointless.  



Gold is hard to move around, if you want to move a ton. Moving small parts of gold isn't a problem for anyone.


Utility and demand are as important as scarcity(or maybe even more important).
You can have a scarce resource/asset, but if this asset is useless and has zero demand, the value/price would still be zero. Scarcity doesn't matter in that case.

As I wrote in a previous post, there is no doubt that the transfer of value through Bitcoin is incomparably faster and easier than when it comes to gold, but there is also no doubt that gold is very easily understood by the average Joe than Bitcoin which is why the market cap of gold is $11+ trillion. This dinosaur may be a thing of the past for some, but it will be a long time before Bitcoin approaches the point where it will become equal.

As for payment, I have never seen anyone accept gold as a direct way to pay for anything (although some say that in some countries there is such a practice), but here we can not make any comparisons between something that exists in physical form and something that exists in the virtual world.

Op is right that there's gold outside Earth and that makes for a potential problem regarding treating it as scarce because it might get possible to mine it. Also, I believe we don't know for sure how much gold there is even on Earth, right? Isn't it possible that some new reserve would be discovered at some point? So we don't know the real total supply of gold. As for Bitcoin, we do know it for sure, even though we don't know how much BTC was lost (burned, lost private keys, accidentally sent to altcoin addresses etc). We can be pretty sure there will never be more than 21 million BTC. But I don't think we can reasonably compare scarcity of something digital with something physical. We can measure BTC per coin, but how shall be measure gold, and who's to say that it should be measured in this specific way? Or do we measure it by value in USD (obviously, disregarding everything outside Earth), but then the price of BTC changes quite drastically. So they are just to different to be compare, apart from the fact that we can't know the total supply of gold and the rate at which the circulating supply would increase, while we know these things about Bitcoin.

Carrying gold is not safe, no one does it, just like no one carries their ledger with them. All meaningful investments love silence and secure storage. I personally think that bitcoin and gold are good investments. Gold has been time-tested, it has only become more expensive over the centuries, and this is an indicator for me. Bitcoin is still relatively young, but has already gained a reputation as a good investment tool, so there is nothing wrong with investing in gold and bitcoin.

Maybe Bitcoins value will become more than $xxx,xxx . Who knows the future?
Yes what we can do now is act smartly and predict the future.
If possible, we should buy as much Bitcoins as we can for the long term, no matter what’s the price of Bitcoins.
Many have already predicted, so do I am saying, in the next 3-5 years, you will be considered as a Bitcoin millionaire if you have atleast 10 BTCs in your wallet.
But these dumb people lately are panicking and selling their Bitcoins at the current point of time.
Nevertheless wise people have always known the concept of Bitcoins, and I am sure they are buying as much Bitcoins as they can right now.

I guess this kind of comparison is somehow obvious as a lot of people refer BTC as the "digital gold" where its inflationary value are similarly alike to gold's limited resources.

The problem with BTC is that its supply is nearly capped to 21 million, whereas gold, while the latter is a non-renewable resource, has the potential of increasing its supply by constant discovery in our ecosystem. With technologies advancing as years passed by, there are tons of potentials being discovered by the world into learning if gold is truly that "scarce" as many had believed it on.

Unlike in BTC, everyone knows that its supply is limited and by the year 2140, all of these BTCs would be mined completely.

Of course bitcoin is a digital currency which is created by man and awarded as block reward through mining while gold is a natural element that nature blessed humanity with, what guarantee do we now have about the presence of gold on other planets, earth has all the best of living creation which is human and we have develop the whole economy to the suitability of making use of a digital asset like bitcoin to make living worth it, everyone can have access to bitcoin despite it worth and it can be easily acquired with maximum safety unlike gold.

I do have to agree with you in the explanation for Gold. In my location, there is virtually a store to buy and sell Gold in almost every major market and access to it is easy hence the continual trading of Gold by many that do believe it is easier to access than Bitcoin and don't still understand the benefit of it. That said, those that understand what Bitcoin is and how much difference there is for it in terms of Investment over a number of years will surely want to go the route of Bitcoin instead of Gold.

i can understand about the sentiments of ChiBitCTy here. gold is a tangible asset where it is a vital component in a lot of industries like electronics. we can't compare the usage of gold with btc. and also remember, you can't mine btc without these computer gadgets. so for me, it is not comparable. maybe in terms of value today but who can assure that in the future, btc will sustain its existence in the market. what if there is new technology created by the new gen? no one knows. the supply of btc may be limited but we have no idea about the continuity of its usage.

Relevant: https://robbreport.com/lifestyle/news/rare-psyche-asteroid-worth-way-more-than-the-global-economy-1234577976/

What if an advanced alien civilization has an even more advanced cryptocurrency? ;D

You are right!
Gold can be found any time maybe on Mars when Elon Musk decides to start a space mission.
Or we can find tons of gold on an asteriod, we don't know.

Only for Bitcoin we know it is truly limited to 21 Millions Bitcoins.
Coders have verified a limit of 21 Milions Bitcoin in Bitcoin's code.
It's really proven.

I like Gold but I also like BTC

Are you sure about that number? That would mean that we have maybe 15 years before there is no more gold to mine. I think actually there is way more gold and also there is a lot gold in old electronics to be recycled. But of course also a lot of gold simply lost forever because it ends in the trash.

Gold is a physical asset and Bitcoin is a digital asset. I just can’t get the comparison of the both. The total bitcoin to be mined all around the world is known already and which i don’t think any changes can effect that, while gold being a physical asset is already in deposit in the earth planet which they can be increase in it under the earth surface, no one can tell. Its total quantity is not known, only hypothesis about it which is not proven to be the true fact yet. BTC is certain and the total amount of it is known already while gold is not.

This analogy looks somehow accurate judging by the total Bitcoin that will ever come into existence and the amount that has been lost forever already,  we will find out that only 21million-3million=18million (in which more will still be lost) will ever be available for earth usage not including the more coin that will be lost as time keep flying . Hodling might just the only cure to catch up with the future Bitcoin price surprises 

well and in my opinion between gold and bitcoin are equally valuable and equal.
And it's true the amount of gold like there is no limit. while bitcoin has a limit.
and even though I myself prefer to invest in bitcoin than in gold but still gold has a myriad of benefits and advantages in our lives apart from being made into jewelry.
that is like:
1. in industry
-first , namely as a conductor in smartphones or smart phones. Gold is often used in the mobile phone industry. This is because gold is an ideal conductor.
Gold also has the advantage of not being easy to rust, making it suitable for making sophisticated electronic items. Not only for smartphones, gold is also used in the PDA manufacturing industry, GPS to sophisticated calculators.
-The second benefit of gold is as a reflector of solar radiation in the glass. Gold is often mixed into special glass-making materials in high-rise buildings.
-third, Gold is also used as a protective helmet for astronauts so that astronauts' eyes and skin are protected while in space.
2. to fill dental fillings. Apparently, the benefits of gold as a dental filling far exceeds the price.
3.As Building Coating
4.As a Spaceship Element
5. Beauty Field
6. On medical

bitcoin excels in its rarity and deserves to be a profitable investment choice and gold excels at the myriad benefits in our daily lives.

I myself bought gold and turned it into a physical asset. and I also collect bitcoins for digital assets.
because I think these 2 things are important. because we do not know what will happen in the future with this earth and its technology.

Yes, gold has many utilities and is widely used in life and there's no reason we should compare them. Currently, bitcoin is considered an investment channel more than any utility, investors in bitcoin just want to make profits, not use bitcoin as a means of payment or currency.

If we just talk about price then maybe OP is right, as bitcoin supply is very limited compared to gold. In the future, the value of bitcoin will surely increase and become the most valuable virtual asset.

clearly different when we compare gold and bitcoin. although bitcoin has a much less supply, but if we compare, gold has a 100% trust level by all the world's population, while bitcoin is currently only 5% of the world's population. although the potential for bitcoin in the future is good, but no one knows for sure when it will happen, while until now the government has not legalized it, and tends to take other options as if there is no bright spot to restore bitcoin to its original function

Maybe we all will be dead by the time gold will be mined from asteroids. Basing your current decisions on predictions about techology that is decades away from now is not a good idea.

The main advantage of gold over Bitcoin is that gold has much higher amount of trust and reliability. Gold never crashes by 20% in one day for no reason. Many investors don't want their store of value to have a chance to go up by 1000%, but with a risk of going down by 50%. They want it to just maintain the value against inflation, and maybe grow a little. In this sense Bitcoin can't compete with gold - it's a risk asset.

I think this question is very sad because bitcoin and gold can't be the same, right? Gold is a natural product that can't be targeted, how much gold in the world, for example, tons of gold still in the earth, it can't be targeted, but if bitcoin is clear how many bitcoins are which was created by Satoshi Nakomoto so bitcoin and gold cannot be compared in number.

Yeah, but I wouldn't really compare the two. When we say BTC is as gold, we mean it as a store of value, but that's where the similarities end. Where BTC is usefull for the financial sector, the gold is also usefull for electronics and even dentistry.

I don't really think only the scarcity of something decides the price of an asset, it's always the combination of Demand and scarcity that decides the price, due to this traditional mentality gold has always fetched a hell lot of demand and even though there has been a lot of production still the price has gone up in a linear manner. If bitcoin in the same manner continues to attract demand from retail investors it will obviously keep rising in price but if the demand get's killed due to failure of bitcoin as an utility then obviously it won't attract that much demand and eventually the price movement wouldn't really be that much.

"BTC is scarcer than gold" is an irrelevant statement, while there are only 21 million units in circulation there is potentially the ability to go to infinite decimal places when discussing units of Bitcoin, it's no way to define the value of an asset. It'd also be interesting to see how you came to the conclusion that there are 55,000 tons of gold left because that is at best a wild estimate. Bitcoin certainly does have some advantages over gold - as you say  it is much easier to transfer between parties in a secure way. However gold also has advantages over bitcoin, like being a precious metal with industrial usages and some rather useful metal properties, as well as being highly sought after in jewelry manufacturing.

Just the same way some people don't see gold as treasure, same way bitcoin will never be used by some people and countries. Whoever has managed to hold plenty of bitcoin and gold as reserve will shill and continue to do so to their advantage but let us forget the sentiment and hate about the two assets and be realistic for once, bitcoin is way better than gold in any definition, name it, the supply, the durability, the clean energy to mine it. If you see the process gold undergoes to become fully processed and ready to be used, you will hate gold entirely but governments will continue to defend their nonsense.

I would like to think Gold as extremely scarce (even more so that Gold has been mined for a very long period of time) rather than see it that Gold is limited, on the other hand, Bitcoin is officially limited to twenty one million, and this is know, but we can not full determine how many gold are left there may still be several gold around waiting to be mined, Gold is natural Just has to go through refining, but Bitcoin isn’t although we use the term mining Bitcoin but that does not make it a natural resources.

It is a debatable topic.  Bitcoin has a fixed number of coins but this can always be changed.  You can also divide a Bitcoin into many parts which some people say makes its supply in fact infinite rather than limited.  Things get worse when you think a one million dollar Bitcoin might require either a change of supply or of decimals, both of which some people argue have the same effect.  Eliminating or diminishing scarcity.

On the other hand, Gold also has its flaws.  I am pretty certain a hundred years ago people thought Gold was much scarcer than it actually is today.  Once technology evolves we get to find more about the world we are living in.  We might find more ways to extract Gold from things we produced.  We might find new ways to look for Gold under the ground.  We might find a way to mine Gold from other planets.  There are so many possibilities and at least a few of them could make Gold's price fall through the floor.  Imagine we found a LOT of Gold on another planet and we are bringing it back to Earth.  That could be the end of Gold as a commodity.

As said in the beginning of this reply.  Debatable and very speculative topic.

A lot of the devices we use today have Gold in it.  Gold is widely used in industries and this is a fact.  Its properties are one of the reasons Gold is still so demanded today.

On the other hand.  There are attempts of getting other much cheaper metals much closer to the properties of Gold.  I think scientists have in fact already accomplished something like this a while ago.  With technology's advance, Gold might turn into just a good metal for jewelry as you say.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

If I want to buy myself some bitcoin, then then I don't need to mine for this, I just go to the exchange and buy some. I will do the same with gold, I will not mine and process it, I will go to a pawnshop and buy some gold. I see no point in arguing which is better if I can use both of these assets for investment and get a profit from it. If you take a period of 10 years and see how gold and bitcoin have grown in price, then you will agree that these are good investment tools.

The creator of bitcoin which is Satoshi Nakamoto invented this currency to be used as a currency and to be a utility someday to buy things but as of today, it's widely invested and then hold that for a matter of time until the holder wants to sell it. Yes, investors just started to invest bitcoin with one aim and that is to gain profits and not like the creator first imagined. But then again, still bitcoin holds a purpose because it can be a hedge against inflation.

As of comparing with Gold and Bitcoin, gold will remain scarce with a high value but bitcoin is scarcer and will hold more value because of its limited supply unlike the gold which its supply is not determined exactly and there's this gold in asteroids.

I will not go into the question of whether BTC is less than gold, I don't really like to compare the two. At present we use gold as the asset of all currencies. The point is, the more gold you have, the more value of your currency. And for this, the big powers are competing for gold reserves. Gold has been used as a currency for thousands of years, but now gold is not used as a currency but as a currency asset.
And Bitcoin, Bitcoin is a potential cryptocurrency. It is called the mother of cryptocurrency. Yes, it may be that the price of Bitcoin may increase many times over due to low supply but I think Bitcoin may not have a value 100 or 200 years from now it may be replaced by someone else but Gold will be used as a valuable asset. I think Bitcoin is the mother of all currencies in the cryptocurrency world, and Gold is the mother of all currencies, Whether it is digital or fiat.

Maybe humanity won't exist in 100-200 years from now (due to WW3 nukes). In that case, yeah, BTC won't be used by anyone to have any kind of value. ;)

But gold won't be used either, soooo...

Despite the uniqueness of them both as an investment asset, we could also as well understand their difference role in the economy, gold is a physical form of an asset that can be bought either in it pure nature as raw or purified forms into different jewelry materials,  bitcoin is a digital decentralized currency that can be accessible by any individual to use as a store of value/asset and also make payments with using any amount, gold although requires much fund to acquire it than bitcoin which one can get base on financial ability and bitcoin has in many ways proof high profitability than gold in recent times.

For me, in general, gold is the most stable investment option. I think that at the present time gold is a really reliable and stable option.

Bitcoin has come to stay here on the planet Earth surface, which is a digital asset, where demand is very high than supply in the near future, total supply 21,000,000 Bitcoins, will be very high scars. and Bitcoin is going to be scars than Gold.

Not everyone holds btc but everyone has held gold that means btc is indeed more rare than gold, btc only middle class people and above have it while gold can be owned by everyone because the price can be reached by the general public.
I mean here bitcoin created by satoshi is limited in number and gold until now the number is unlimited so it is very appropriate to say bitcoin is more rare and gold.

Gold is not really scarce, just look at any graph about production of gold, it's getting more common every day.

Bitcoin on the other hand has a known pattern for creating new blocks....

Tick, Tock, another block!

And these rewards keep getting smaller over time!.

No this is not true. Gold is mined and discovered every day and we do not know the maximum supply of gold. Even though bitcoin is also mined daily but there is a maximum limit on bitcoin supply.
Secondly, there is not only about scarcity but it is also about purity. With bitcoin, you are 100% sure that it is genuine bitcoin but there is an element and risk of impurity in gold.

Even though I prefer BTC compared to Gold, there are other potential issues with the former:

https://itscryptonews.com/industry-execs-claim-freshly-minted-virgin-bitcoins-fetch-20-premium-2/

Regardless of how people convince something about gold or bitcoin, but I just think these two assets are good choices to invest in. Gold has been known for longer as an investment asset as well as a means of payment than bitcoin, but when we want to know which is the best of the two then it just depends on which asset you tend to trust.

Bitcoin has a limited supply of only 21 million, but gold is very difficult to know when it will run out because the number will continue to grow every day. It's up to us to profit from which assets between the two, but what is certain is that both are investment assets that are worth considering.

For me, gold is a more solid investment, so to speak. I think that in fact, with the right approach, the result can be obtained by investing in cryptocurrency, but still.

When people watch a video clip of a North American singer, the person looks at the North American singer's neck and sees: "A lot of gold hanging on the neck" at that time the person understands well how thousands of people will always buy gold, gold It has application in the real world, it is not just a store of value, it is not just something to trade in the market, it is something that has application in the real world and this has been happening for years. Who doesn't want to own a gold ring? Who doesn't want to own a gold bracelet? Who doesn't want to have a car plated with pure gold? Who doesn't want to have a bar of gold at home?

We have to admit that gold is a good thing and we cannot compare gold vs bitcoin. each of the things has advantages and disadvantages. Bitcoin still has a long way to go to reach the level of adoption that gold


I agree, cryptocurrencies are a high risk investment, and honestly it's the kind of thing that people should be very careful with when dealing with them. I like bitcoin but this market needs to mature a lot, this always reaching ATH and then falling more than 50% is definitely becoming a big danger

Thank you very much, that is exactly my point, if statistically it is correct that we have roughly about 10% left of bitcoin to mine, that means that whenever that period of time comes,  there will be a very high scarcity in Bitcoin, Gold on the other hand is a naturally occurring substance. So, when that time comes when there will be just 10% left of the Bitcoin to be mined, I strongly believe that in that moment, we should expect a high demand in quantity possession of Bitcoin and then there will be lesser supply of it, which in turn means but Gold still retains its availability.

TODAY XAUUSD MARKET ANALYSIS

Gold climbed back on Friday morning but it is little changed at 1869 with the key NFP print due later. The main driver or the key change in the market remains the rising Treasury yield. U.S. 10-year Treasury yield stabilized at 2.924%. Equity markets are pushing higher, cooling down the demand for the dollar, and helping the Gold edge higher.  
The dollar stays on the back foot amid worries that the NFP might add the smallest number of jobs since April 2021.  
 Investors remain on edge as some fear the pace of US monetary tightening could throw the world’s largest economy into a recession.
Today May labour report is likely to show the smallest gain in jobs since April 2021 alongside a downshift in average hourly earnings growth. If the number comes and intensifies the worries, it could be a double-sword for the gold. If worries quickly translates into a global recession risk, it could in turn boost the safe-haven dollar, which could lead the Gold lower. But if it is only moderately  lower, it might weigh  more on the dollar, therefore releasing some upside for the gold.

Gold is stable because the elite controls the market and it's heavily centralized, there is nothing interesting about it. Under 4 years, Bitcoin performance has beat that of gold 5 times and gold has been unable to cross its previous all time high.
Gold supply is infinite, you can't estimate the total amount of gold in the world, there are some people with hidden wealth under gold that don't want the rest of the world to know what is in their possession, and some have been hidden by generations but bitcoin is different, no matter how you want your bitcoin to be hidden from the rest of the world, the supply will remain 21 million, some are lost forever due to private key issues and 100 bitcoin that had the same transaction ID.

I believe the cost of mining from the asteroids would be huge and its almost impossible for time being. We don't have technological advancement otherwise we already know which plant has biggest source of ethanol, minerals, gold and what not. There are so many moons of different planets who are capable of all of these but its not economical. We would end up paying more for tech and fuel before we can make it there.

However, I only agree on bitcoin side. Yes its limited in supply, there is no way to extend it any further and thus seems to be reasonable asset for long holding. Thats the reason many of them are whale investors, they just thinking about simple demand and supply formula irrespective of its use case.

But Gold is already recognized by the world regarding its value. Even Gold has become a reserve asset for countries in the world. Even Gold has become an investment tool for the villagers. Even they can reach it more easily. As for Bitcoin, there is no agreement yet on Bitcoin, each country has the right to determine what they do for bitcoin. Not everyone is familiar with Bitcoin yet. Even many people are not familiar with the basics related to BTC. That's because the quality of the world's natural resources has not been evenly distributed. That is a slight difference from BTC and Gold. So far BTC is only an alternative investment other than Gold by the world community.

Bitcoin is the defacto digital currency of planet Earth.

It cannot exist anywhere else (even Mars) due to TCP/IP limitations (latency).

Hard to compare both. I believe physical, palpable precious metals will always be more important than virtual goods such as bitcoin. And although we don't know how much gold there is disponible in the universe, it's a fact gold is still very scarce and difficult to acquire.

There is a lot of gold hidden in the depths of this world yet, but it doesn't mean we know how to access or have the means to access that. On the other hand, with bitcoin it's simpler, as all you have to do is to set a virtual mining farm operation to start earning and accumulating your satoshis. That means bitcoin is more accessible and reachable than gold.

Bitcoin is scarcer & also better than good in every conceivable way. You can’t take $1,000,000,000 worth of good on a plane in your suitcase, can you. Bitcoin is the future of money, gold is a dinosaur as a store of value. You also can't pay for many things directly with gold.

I think the only crucial difference between gold and bitcoin is that you can touch and see only one of them.

I personally think that's a pro for bitcoin, but for some people that's a pro for gold.

gold can be made as a bitcoin symbol, and bitcoin is intangible so I don't think there is a need to compare bitcoin and gold which is for sure real gold one day it will definitely be eroded because it is owned by everyone

Can I say more gold can be fin or discovered, but I want to ask; can You and I detects if my country minings Gold or having Gold underground?
It can be yes or No. At this point we can't tell how much Gold left but Bitcoin we already knows the total volume or values left which you and I still stands in a better chance to acquired it. For sure bitcoin is taking place to be the number one among all.

For sure can't compare Bitcoin that has a limited supply of (21M) to be in existence to Gold.
We only know the number of already mined gold in circulation but not know those that are yet to be mined .
For instance the Northern side of my country there are a lot of Gold mined every day which are not taken into account.
Therefore due to the continues discovery of gold because it's a natural endowment Bitcoin is indeed scarcer than Gold.

Gold supply is not verifiable.  Supply and price is therefore easily manipulated through paper markets.   Even if you had Gold in your hands, you might need to melt it down and recast, just to be sure.

Without that important property of money, it's worthless.

Bitcoin on the other hand, happens to be 100% physically verifiable.   Just check against one of the copies of the ledger.

I think Bitcoin is an easy investment. Bitcoin is being used more than gold. It is often the case that everyone holds Bitcoin for profit in cryptocurrency. Again I think It is better to invest in both gold and bitcoin. If you want to invest in Bitcoin, you can invest in Bitcoin at home.

Gold may be used more than bitcoin around the world. Gold is a mine that has been used in every field since ancient times. But bitcoin is a currency that has emerged in recent years. Bitcoin also has mining, but it isn‘t easy to replace gold for now. There are a lot of gold in the world and will continue to be used for many years to come.

Your analysis is correct, Bitcoin is a lot more rare and scare than gold. The quantifiable nature of the digital currency makes it very scarce as people acquire the asset. That is why it is beneficial to long term holders - when bitcoin will enter the 6 -digit lane. Bitcoin is a unique digital asset worth HOLDING, but ensure you HOLD what you can afford to loose since the asset is highly volatile, best for long term investors.

I don't believe in any issues in bitcoin and it is more reliable than gold. Although bitcoin is very much volatile due to which people are afraid to invest in it. People prefer gold investment only due to the fact that it has been used for decades and its price is somewhat stable.

Bitcoin's volatility can be safely ignored if invested for many years. The reason why people look at bitcoin with caution may not be volatility at all. Older generations are frightened by bitcoin's novelty and technical incomprehensibility for it. Gold has long been established in the minds of people for thousands of years as an element of wealth and reliability. Investing in gold seems like a habit, whereas investing in bitcoin has long been the preserve of young people, tech geeks and trailblazers (with a few exceptions). The difference between gold and bitcoin is that it doesn't allow you to grow wealth as much and is used to freeze your funds, not to increase them. Also, gold has low liquidity, while bitcoin is devoid of this disadvantage and can be sold anywhere in the world without any examination of authenticity. Although these two assets have some similarities, it seems to me that it very different and it is not entirely correct to compare them. One thing is certain, that the bitcoin number has a finite figure, while gold can be mined in new fields, whether it be the Earth, asteroids or other planets.

Most of the bitcoin holders have been firm in holding it and not gonna sell if it's not needed to be done.

We've been enduring all of these bear markets for a long time and I think even the new ones have been absorbing the energy from the long time holders through shared experiences and analysis.

But if I'm the typical investor, I'll take on board gold and bitcoin at the same time if I have the means of having them both since it's very much better thing to diversify if it's the both of it.

Yes, you are right, why choose between two assets if they both performed well over time and showed good growth over the years. Can't keep all the eggs in one basket, this rule is as old as the world. Moreover, no matter how good bitcoin was, gold existed long before it and with dignity survived many difficulties. It is too late to sell bitcoin now, no matter how much I believe in a further fall of bitcoin, but there is still the possibility that growth can begin at any moment.

Couldn't agree more!

It took thousands of years to establish gold in people's minds*, it took many decades to establish the internet for the masses (since 1969/ARPANET), so chances are it won't take more than 10 years to establish BTC as the next reserve currency (https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/08/15/ranking-the-currencies-that-could-unseat-the-dollar/). ;)

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHjYt6Jm5j8

The adoption curve keeps getting smaller and smaller with every new innovation...

It doesn't make a lot of sense to sell assets (unless you're 100% sure you're gonna buy cheaper later on).

Just like owning a house... it makes more sense to rent it (passive income), rather than sell it (well, unless you're 80+ years old already)!

I don't think human creation can be rare in the future, he said 21 million, but you don't know and neither am I the circulation of Bitcoins that are circling in the crypto market, orally and in writing 21 million, I think the beginning can be created in the end as well, the value of Bitcoin in my opinion is not based on scarcity, but based on demand/sell/buy.

Although gold, is not as efficient as Bitcoin, but gold is not a human creation and gold has been traded for thousands of years, in my opinion it is not difficult to sell and buy.

For that Bitcoin one day, for example, reaches a price of $xxx, my assessment is the buyer factor is not the basis of scarcity.

I think I also agree with you, as mentioned above Bitcoin is much rarer than gold and very hard to get and makes people very hard to get it, talking about fluctuating a lot of people don't really care about it, and also many people also say Bitcoin is much more reliable than gold. and I can say Bitcoin is very good and more suitable for investing with a long period of time.

But many people choose to invest their money in Gold, because they have a little fear of fluctuations in Bitcoin and choose to invest in Gold whose price will remain stable.

It's always a "paradisiacal" counterpoint, but the situation is that it should not turn on a "mirage," you want to mention that bitcoin is scarce in reference to...gold, ok, why not, if that gives it a sense of belonging that's fine.


I think if we have a necklace with 12 secret phrases in gold, we could proclaim that we have a bitcoin necklace...sorry,  I think I'm entering the mirage phase.

Before I see this thread I already know this fact. Common sense is enough to know this. The supply of gold is unknown while the supply of btc is limited to 21m only. There might be gold's on an asteroid but it will be very risky to get them because asteroids are I think moving very fast and don't hope that there would be some asteroid that will fell on the ground because it is too damaging.

Gold is hard to move around it is true for larger chunks but if it's only small? It is going to be easy and we have many pawnshops around us that accept gold. Aside from earth, we can also live on mars so it is also possible to carry our bitcoins there. As long as there is internet bitcoins is also functional.

Not possible at all.

Earth <-> Mars latency is 10-20 minutes, which would break TCP/IP. 2 different chains would occur...

Therefore Mars would need Marscoin.

Bitcoin can only work on planet Earth, unless the whole humanity moves somewhere else altogether. An Earth colony far away will not be able to use or mine BTC.

Gold is exist since a long time ago and has been used for store a value, but now gold doesn't have huge demand currently because of many assets are perform better than gold e.g. Bitcoin. Gold isn't an asset for the future since anyone have use it on 19th and 20th century, we're moving to the more technology stuffs. Bitcoin is the future since it can be used for both store a value and as a currency, that's why many people said Bitcoin is a digital gold.

So is my saliva. It is also authentic to my DNA, no one can reproduce it without being me but they can check if I am the one who produced it.

it is also deflationary, as I get older and my salivary glands slow down.

Yeah it's ture! Bitcoin is scarcer than gold. but the price of gold is more stable than that of Bitcoin.
https://xtrading.com/market-data/ (https://xtrading.com/market-data/)

Gold is not that rare indeed:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/vcb5gb/31_million_tons_of_gold_deposits_found_in_uganda/

1. "244,000 metric tons of gold has been discovered to date, 55,000 tons of gold are left. " most of the gold is under the earths mantle, we will find ways to extract it, way before we're "mining asteroids"

2. Gold is used for alot of devices, billions of phones, pcs, gaming consoles etc, the cpu's, and gpu's used to mine bitcoin, there would be no bitcoin without gold.

3.All of these altcoins are just an improved version of bitcoin, pros of some of these alternatives are, faster transactions, more private transactions, cheaper transactions, not PoW, more features, etc.
The reason people are using bitcoin is, kinda like facebook, alot of people hate it, and pref the other social media platforms, but they never leave because those others don't have every person on the planet already using it. so they stick with the crappy version.
Basically bitcoin is like a visa card lets just say visa has higher fees, and the online transactions are always pending, And some altcoin that's better than bitcoin is a discover card, it has lower fees, and instant online transactions. but like everyone else
you don't apply for the discover card because no stores accept it.

4. Most importantly. Theres a reason the creator of bitcoin created bitcoin with 8 decimal places, that's 2,100,000,000,000,000 satoshi's , so it's really not scarce is it?

5. (BTC is scarcer than gold. I think one day 1 BTC will enter the $xxx,xxx zone then the $x,xxx,xxx HODL BTC) Theres countless reasons someone could speculate the price of bitcoin skyrocketing,
but this is the dumbest, The supply cap is what you think gives bitcoin it's value? really?

6. (There is no Bitcoin in the whole Universe, except on Planet Earth.) Why would you even say something so ridiculous? You think no one knows that? or do you think aliens are going to come buy it up and make it scarcer? is that whats going to contribute to the million dollar value? lol

7. Global warming is getting worse, it's more environmentally friendly to chop down trees, and print paper money lol, most regions it's not even profitable to mine bitcoin, most people who are doing it, are using government subsidies to turn a profit.
that's like using 100$ in electricity, and getting 90$ back. Hurting the planet, and screwing tax payers. Bitcoins blockchain doesn't work without miners pushing through the transactions. And the difficulty is only rising. It says the last bitcoin will be mined in 2140
do you think it's sustainable?

But bitcoin could be worth a million each, that doesn't mean everyone who uses it will have a million dollars to pay $10+ fees, difficulty rises, so does the cost to mine blocks.

But more likely this is what will happen. bitcoin just crashed to the price it was 2years ago, sooner or later it's going to crash so low, that miners will be losing insane amounts trying to mine blocks, the network will get so congested people wait days on their transactions,
And this will cause all kinds of panic sells, the price will spiral down to the point bitcoin won't recover. And this is when everyone will universally agree on an altcoin that will replace bitcoin as the standard crypto currency. unless the price gets high, and stays high before this happens.

are you stupid?

1. The price has only gone up for gold

2. theres over 15billion smart devices using min 0.1g of gold each that's 2,000tons, and how often do you buy a new phone, how often do you recycle your old one?
out of 244,000tons.  2,000 tons is used every 10years, less than 20% of it gets recycled. 244,000 isn't even the real number of available gold, and 1,600 tons of it is thrown away every 10years, just from smart devices.

i'll just copy paste the uses of gold....


Wealth protection and a financial exchange
Decoration, jewellery and medals
Electronics
Space exploration   (satellites)
Medicine and dentistry   (micro-particles are being used in the treatment of some cancers)  ( injected as a treatment for Rheumatoid arthritis and muscle damage)


bitcoin just crashed to the price is was 2years ago, and you really just said bitcoin is a better performing asset?

(we're moving to the more technology stuffs) you can't even mine btc without the gold used in your cpu/gpu.

(Bitcoin is the future since it can be used for both store a value and as a currency) All currency holds a value when you give it a trade pair, and even when you don't, every currency still holds a value, it's called a denomination.
This is the dumbest thing ive ever read in my long life of strolling the internet. I truly wish i could give you some kind of award.

Exactly mate! we don't necessarily compare gold and bitcoin, if possible it's best to invest in both instead of choosing either. Bitcoin is really good and worth the investment because of the profit it makes and its utility but there is no denying that bitcoin is still a new, highly volatile asset class and more difficult is that bitcoin is being disliked by governments so there will still be unforeseen risks. So diversify your portfolio and don't put it all in one basket.

And every copy of Bitcoin, with a different starting seed, is also scarcer than gold. That doesn't mean it has value. Anyone can copy Bitcoin by just changing a few parameters in the source code. The value of something is not determined by rarity, that is irrelevant, but rather consumer demand. Technically any 256 bit random number you generate is unique in all the world. Good luck, however, selling it.

Many people compare because they threat both as an asset but this two is incomparable because we know that they have different attributes and also they have different usage so its not really good to see to release a comparison because everyone will give their different opinions towards this. But if I'm the one which I gonna choose among this for thinking that its a safe heaven I will choose gold because volatility of bitcoin is kinda scary but in terms of profitability its undeniable bitcoin is ideal for this.

Bitcoin will lead us to Dyson sphere (Type 2 civilization).

Few people understand this, even in the BTC community...

We need to stop thinking that old school energy production is the only thing we can achieve as a species.

It should be understood that the price of bitcoin changes much more often than the price of gold. So it’s worth understanding that investing in bitcoin differs much more noticeably.

Yup agree with your point both mind and heart.

you are saying right.BTc mining remaining less than 10 percent.After that all bitcin circulate in the market.But as comared gold prices are  going to high day by day.A wise person choose gold because there is no chances of losing asset and risks involved with it.

I agree with your opinion that the price of bitcoin often fluctuates because the price of the currency bitcoin falls deeper while gold is more stable so it is very inappropriate to compare bitcoin to gold.

Scarcity does not decide price and value. Utility does.

You can create an altcoin with less total supply than Bitcoin or gold but it does not mean your altcoin will automatically has a much higher price than either gold or Bitcoin. Value does not decide by total supply.

But Bitcoin has a transparent total supply and it is unchanged. Gold total supply is unknown and can be changed.

when bitcoin is long gone there will still be gold. gold can't be destroyed. bitcoin can. bitcoin can be lost forever. gold can't be. just because something is scarce doesn't imply it is valuable. not a good argument.

Nobody said that forks of bitcoin have value because of scarcity.

This is clearly relevant I rather say. Supply and demand determine the market value. Limiting supply to a finite number with a programmed inflation, regardless of the demand, influences the market value.

Um, proof?

when the sun becomes a red giant, bitcoin here on earth will go away. that doesn't mean bitcoin won't go away sooner though.

lets clarify things

bitcoins price is not dependant on the scarcity of bitcoin or the rarity or the network supply(coin in circulation)

bitcoins market price has nothing to do with coins hoarded on independent private keys.. but purely on the coins inside a market/exchange

there is more impact on the price based on the amount of coin offered WITHIN THE MARKET.. not the network.
EG
if a buyer only has $400 in 2013 but a seller is offering 1btc. then bitcoin is worth $400/btc in 2013. where the circulating supply of the network is only 12mill coins..

if a buyer only has $400 in 2022 but a seller is offering 0.02btc. then bitcoin is worth $20k/btc in 2022. where the circulating supply of the network is 19mill coins..

as you can see there is more coins in circulation in 2022 than in 2013 (19m vs 12m respectively) yet the price is not reflecting the amount of coins in the network

..
the other thing is scarcity is about how common/available/able to get from nearby peoples/services something is
nearly everyone has a bit of gold in their possession.. dental fillings, device circuitry, jewellery. yet less than 10% of the world has btc

there might be
244,000 tonnes of gold = 244m kg = 244billion grams of gold to share
there might be 21m btc = 2.1quadrillion sats to share.

2,100,000,000,000,000 sat units
vs
244,000,000,000 gold units
yet gold is more available in everyones home, its more common and reachable, thus less rare/scarce

bitcoin is not in everyones possession thus is less common thus more scarce, even though there are more available shareable units

The human species will migrate to another solar system, along with BTC.

proof?

I cannot comprehend some calculations of very detailed prices nor value but there’s one thing I am sure of and it is always scary if you have a lot to lose someday. Taking big step is always a courageous act that’s why we should invest of what are feeling that gives us comfort and security. If you want a physical investment that can be used anytime, I’d go for gold because it is very convenient because of its always appraising price. But if we are going to talk about bitcoin, it is an investment where you will need some extra cautions and positive thinking because investing in crypto world takes a lot of time before you’ll cherish every moment.

Yes, It is true that bitcoin is more volatile than gold, but both are different in their places. Gold is a physical asset and bitcoin is a digital currency. People are thinking more to invest in bitcoin rather than Gold and return of gold is less than compared to Bitcoin

What is true is that bitcoin is really more easy to move around than gold. So if the next century will really be the century where humans will discover space we will also see that people will not send gold to a colony on the moon, but they will easily send bitcoin.

Bitcoin is intangible and therefore it is mobile than gold. Talking about for centuries where humans may discover and live in space. Bitcoin can be sent their if there is network. That reminds me, I saw somewhere in the internet that Elon wants to build a hotel in Mars to be launched by 2025. If that happens, both Bitcoin and gold would be found in Mars. ;D

Gold investment is indeed very popular and has been used by investors for a long time, but over time, many investors have started to be interested in using bitcoin, even in my own country, many investors have switched to using bitcoin as an asset, it can't be denied. these two types of investments are very tempting and can maintain the value of our assets in the future, gold is a precious metal that we can save ourselves, gold can also be used as jewelry, while bitcoin itself is in the form of balances, which are stored in a block chain or blockchain,
So it is certain that bitcoin is rarer than gold.

Gold has been a reliable source of investment for people around the world for many years. Gold was also used before Bitcoin appeared. With the recognition of bitcoin throughout the world, a new era has begun. Investors chose bitcoin as their source and it was a logical move in terms of profit rate. It would not be correct to compare gold and bitcoin with each other. There are huge differences between them. At the moment, gold is more in the foreground in terms of reliability. However, if you want to earn higher profits, bitcoin will be the right choice.

Ofcourse, it's scarcer. However, Gold is scarce doesn't mean the undiscovered ones are getting exhausted or are that low in quantity. This World is unbelievably hugh and  humans have only discovered a very little part of it. I would invest more in searching for gold in the world than elsewhere.

It does make sense to spend your money on finding and extracting the gold we have in the earth right now, that makes sense of course. However, when the space flight technology becomes something that is as cheap as driving a car today and becomes the new normal, we are going to end up finding a lot of it.

Not just gold neither, we are going to start looking for all the things we needed, and oil or any kind of energy would be number one in that case. Lets realize that energy sector is a huge one for a reason, we need that to go on, everything else comes in second, maybe food and clean water as well of course. So, we are going to find resources on other places and extract and bring that back "eventually", hence why bitcoin would ALWAYS be more valuable.

bitcoin is only important to the extent that computers and internet exists. take those things away and bitcoin loses its value proposition. gold on the other hand doesn't need anything to exist. and people can find uses for it no matter what the state of technological level in the society.

even if we found alot of gold i'm not sure the price would be affected that much. but to think that you're going to be mining asteroids well that's kind of laughable. it probably would cost more to mine the gold on the asteroid and transport it back to earth than the gold itself is worth.

how abundant natural resources are available and enjoyed. source of energy and strength of course bitcoin is something that is more flexible. indeed only need to use a lightweight device and the value is evidence of a choice of many bitcoin enthusiasts and users who are dense enough to create the current price.

indeed millions of btc already have its master anonymously. and this rarity is what makes it special and the flying price makes everyone glance and thrive.
the reason for a thousand fold pump.
I also choose bitcoin bro over other assets.

I have always considered Bitcoin more scarce than gold. First, it’s in limited supply and the demand for BTC has increased significantly over time. Also, it takes some technical ability to acquire crypto.

For example, I know people that still don’t know where to buy coins. Much like gold I think BTC will be a great hedge against inflation in the coming years when the volatility levels out.

These two types of investments are indeed very tempting because these two investments can protect our assets in the future, actually bitcoin and gold have the same function but different goals, I also strongly agree that bitcoin is rarer than gold, because the existence of bitcoin is very limited, in contrast to gold, because gold is easy to find and gold has also been made into jewelry by many women.

Again with the comparison of BTC and Gold. It's like comparing apple to orange. Both have their own use and I don't see why they can't be on the same page. Gold for physical storage, peg fiat, in jewelry, in electrical components,... Did you know your computer can be extracted for a little of gold worth? Can BTC replace that? What next? Oil?

it is true that gold is not rare. and the limits are uncertain. because even if the gold on earth runs out. then most likely gold on other planets is much more. different from bitcoin which is limited and only exists on this earth.

but still gold also has its own advantages considering the amount of gold used in the progress of this era. gold is widely used in real life not only as jewelry but also as an important component in making machines. in the construction of buildings and even in the manufacture of spacecraft.

gold and bitcoin have their respective advantages. but I am currently more interested in bitcoin as a means of my investment.

it is true gold is real jewelry that can be used and seen physically and can be used as an investment asset.
but when compared with bitcoin with gold in terms of scarcity it is very different.
gold can be produced by the initial mining process taken from nature and is not limited in the amount of raw gold, supplies in nature cannot be calculated or predicted.
while bitcoin is much more rare because the number is limited and there are only 21 million pieces scattered around the world, it has also been predicted that there are only 2 million bitcoins left and if bitcoin mining continues until the supply runs out, bitcoin is right. rare.

Although both are equally good to have (Bitcoin and Gold). But basically I very rarely make comparisons for the two even though I like both for future investment reasons. It's just that for the problem of profits in investments that I've ever run, then it can't be denied that Bitcoin can provide more profits even though the risk is also not small.
But in the case of Gold, it is more of a physical asset storage whose profits are not much and can also decrease in value even though in a very small size, because the price of Gold also does not last like the value of fiat currency.

Bitcoin

• Bitcoin have limited supply.
• Growth in short term.
• Technology backed.
• Multiple usage.
• Highly volatile.

Gold

• Rare availability.
• Growth through years.
• Asset backed.
• Multiple (limited) usage.
• Less volatile.

These are very few difference between bitcoin and gold.
Each one unique by its way and functionality.

Because, it technically is. I mean there isn't a gold weight standard or amount standard, people talk about the current situation like "ounce" is good enough but it's really not because we could talk about it in kilos, in different shapes, even when we are talking about technological parts there are some which uses gold in it.

So long story short, gold is not really talked about in just one single shape. Whereas 1 bitcoin is 1 bitcoin. That means we could have more bitcoin or less bitcoin than gold depending on how you see gold calculated as. Plus gold could still be found somewhere, in my nation there was a small amount found recently, worth nearly one billion dollars but that's small compared to how much we already have. Whereas bitcoin could never exceed 21 million.

Yes, gold continues to come out, many discover gold in many mines, bitcoin is limited to only 21 million and all the bitcoins that have been lost help make the price much more valuable, the more limited it is, the more value it will have, this is a economic law and it is the reason why bitcoin will remain alive and will reign over controlled fiat money, and despite the fact that many improvements are made to fiat money, it will not be able to touch the heels of bicoin, and gold only gives security and security to investments.

Yes, it absolutely is; however gold has more of a history of a store of value. But Bitcoin is also a better medium of exchange, not to mention its store of value potential isn't anywhere close to being fully realized yet.

Number of Bitcoins is limited which makes it a scarce asset which is a known fact. Whereas many geographers also suggest gold is a scarce metal which may not be the fact as many areas of the subject are not studied yet.

I created this kind of topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5408390.msg60671668#msg60671668) on August 1st and from the response I got, I learnt that it's too early to begin to compare gold with Bitcoin.  According to history, gold has been in existence for over 5000 years and persevere through ages with different purpose which it serve. Bitcoin on the other hand has only been in existence for about 13 years now.
      . According to records, about 78% of the gold consumed each year is used in the manufacturing of jewelry.  
      . small amount of gold is used in almost every sophisticated electronic device. This includes cell phones, calculators, personal digital assistants, global positioning system (GPS) units, and other small electronic devices.
      . Gold is known to have been used in dentistry as early as 700 B.C.
      . Small amounts of gold are used to remedy a condition known as lagophthalmos, which is an inability of a person to close their eyes completely.

Gold has lots of uses and is really too early to compare gold with Bitcoin. Gold can server as my physical asset and Bitcoin can fit in as my digital asset it feels good to me having the both asset.

I think that saying Bitcoin is scarcer than gold is totally wrong. 

First of all, you can divide Bitcoin into smaller parts and it works just the same. So this divisional fungibility really is what makes it possible for everyone to own some parts of a Bitcoin. Gold on the other hand needs to be a certain minimal quantity to be useful. Secondly and more importantly, Gold can be recycled but in a lot of use cases it's destroyed forever (made unrecoverable or not worth recovering). Bitcoin does not fall victim to entropy after too many uses. It stays fine as it is, no matter how many times it is used.

So you will find it's gold that is slowly fading away and becoming scarce, not Bitcoin.

It seems to me you are confusing scarcity with value because they share the same property of existing in a limited amount.

Yeah, it is not too early to compare bitcoin and gold. It is wrong to make a comparison between gold and bitcoin. Both were completely different and have completely different backing system.

Gold have got lot of uses, same as that bitcoin too have got multiple usage. The biggest difference, bitcoin is technology oriented with limited supply. Gold is rare metal that gained the value through its years of history.

Bitcoin is not only scarcer than Gold, but also easier to mine than Gold. It's highly portable and truly censorship-resistant. If people only knew Bitcoin's true benefits, prices wouldn't be this low. I think BTC is greatly undervalued, considering all of the benefits it provides to its holders. Most people consider BTC as a better store of value than Gold, because of the way it was designed. You won't see results in the short-term, due to the volatility of the crypto market. Only long-term holders will obtain huge returns in the future as Bitcoin's reaches a new All-time-high in price after every halving event.

Experts are already predicting BTC will reach $1m, so I'd suggest anyone to "hodl" strong whenever possible. As long as you don't invest more than what you can't afford to lose, there should be nothing to worry about. Just my thoughts ;D

Experts have been predicting that ever since bitcoin went to $1000 for the first time. One way that could happen though is if the us government printed so much money that the us dollar because worthless. Then bitcoin would be worth $1m usd but it probably couldn't buy you a car.

Now with that said, bitcoin could of course go to $1m without hyperinflation but we have had alot of inflation lately. lately meaning the last 2 or 3 years. in the usa. so the usd is becoming more worthless due to government printing more and more of it and it being backed by nothing.

This is what Hal Finney predicted in 2009:

The US Dollar (as well as any other Fiat currency) is prone to devaluation over time (also known as inflation). Governments continuously print more money in order to help "pump" the economy. But what they're ultimately doing is destroying the nation by increasing debt. That's where both Bitcoin and Gold come in. These two assets are known to be a safe haven against inflation because of their added scarcity. Especially Bitcoin which has a smaller and predictable supply than Gold itself. While the latter is much more recognized as a store of value, it isn't as portable as Bitcoin is. By portability, I mean that you can carry the asset/commodity with you anywhere with ease. Bitcoin can be hidden in the smallest place you can think of, but that's not possible with Gold (imagine carrying lots of bulky Gold bars bringing unwanted attention). That's one of the many benefits Bitcoin has on top of Gold.

The reason why Bitcoin is struggling to rise in price right now, it's because of the deteriorating global economy. But it has still outperformed Gold in terms of price gains within a short period of time. Gold is just static with minimal price increases over time. It's relatively stable based on past market performance. Ultimately, you decide which asset to hold for the long-term. As long as you don't hoard cash, you'll be safe from the negative effects of inflation. Just my opinion :)

One could argue that anyone that is predicting that has a vested interest in their prediction so they are far from a neutral observer. I haven't heard any logical argument that would support that prediction and if the last 5 or 6 years has taught us anything it is that bitcoin getting to higher price levels is not going to be a slam dunk. >:(

Shouldn't that just make bitcoin do even better though? With inflation and things? at any rate, bitcoin's current price is reflective of the value it provides to the world at large. you can't argue with that. when prices are low or when prices are high...

Although it is true and certain in the future bitcoin is the best investment for everyone. But people should also know, that bitcoin and gold are different, bitcoin does not have a more specific form like gold. Both are very different in real practice, overall I prefer bitcoin to invest, because the long process of bitcoin has shown how valuable bitcoin is today, so it is possible that bitcoin will get better in the future

Gold supply is still unknown and it's available till the last gold mine is not shut down or there are chances that you can find another one year after also and it has been in circulation for ages but on the other side btc supply is fixed and capped to 21million only and that also till 2140 with POW mechanism and you can't change it without concensus.

And it goes same with the gold also as they have not started mining at other planets but suppose the human found life on another planet then you would need internet and phone to use bitcoin so it's non physical indentity mande it usable everywhere.

Some users just be posting drivel.

Much like in regular finance, or well, any other job where talking and exposure seems to get you social media street cred, experts are a dime a dozen in crypto. There are even people now advertising courses to turn noob influencers into experts, and actually get them hired in crypto companies as experts. I keep getting offers on LinkedIn to pay me to be a speaker on some online panel as some branded expert and I'm not even remotely qualified.

BTC may be in fact scarcer then gold but I don’t think that makes it more valuable than gold. Gold has from time been a scarce valuable mineral resource that is used in the production of jewelry and other valuable items. BTC on the other hand has a definite number out there so it would definitely get exhausted someday. You claim there are 55,000 tons of gold left yet there still are still a lot of untapped gold deposits in the universe.
I think the correlation between the two isn’t viable as gold being a mineral resource is something we can all see and know to be valuable. I think there are lots of untapped gold deposits still on planet earth and we wouldn’t have to look to asteroids for gold.

Exactly the reason why holding fiats is not that practical and reliable anymore especially these times that there's a lot of inflation happened lately, the US cannot deny anymore that their fiat is becoming more and more useless, and printing more of it will just make the situation worse.

Also, we cannot really rely on those experts saying that bitcoin is expected to climb to the price of $xxx,xxx soon because their predictions are not on point and that's already proven. But it's still worth noting that holding bitcoin is much more practical than holding fiat alone and bitcoins can be used as a defense against inflation. Thanks again, Satoshi!

Somehow people always want to compare bitcoin to gold. I don't think these two assets are the same even though they deserve my attention and consideration in an investment portfolio. I've known gold longer than bitcoin, but I believe the use cases are very different in the real world.

Bitcoin is not physical, but is the most valuable asset with a limited supply to satisfy a decentralized financial system. Compared to gold, bitcoin is trusted by a small part of the world community as the best investment asset but gold has been around for thousands of years which until now remains the investment choice of the majority of people in the world. I really want to know which one is the best as an investment asset because so far gold has dominated my investing for real assets.

bitcoin and gold are different things bitcoin is crypto and gold is a metal maybe in terms of use they have something in common but the differences are also very much first asset form Gold in the form of metal is often also used as jewelry and is very much in demand. and gold is also a profitable investment choice because it has a more stable value. while bitcoin has a digital form and cannot be owned in physical form and in the form of a balance stored in an electronic wallet or blockchain the second is asset availability gold comes from natural resources that are limited and rare in my opinion because its availability is not known for sure while bitcoin the amount and assets or supply is known and has been determined by the bitcoin maker The third is the determination of the selling and buying prices The price of gold itself is determined by many things such as global conditions, the amount of demand, inflation and the exchange rate of the dollar (US). whereas bitcoin is determined by the state of the economic market, inflation and declines in other investment assets. So in conclusion, both have their own advantages and both are the best investment assets.

I always believed that Hal Finney was satoshi, the last message Satoshi ever sent to the world was before Hal died, and after that we never saw any message from Satoshi himself, maybe that is just luck but I feel like they are too connected, and the fact that he "friended" Hal right away as the first person to deal with bitcoin aside from Satoshi is also another big key. He believed in bitcoins success, and he was really in love with it until he passed away.

However, bitcoin equaling the whole wealth of the world is a bit too much, maybe like be at the levels of gold? Like 500k each bitcoin give or take? That would be something understandable for sure.

https://twitter.com/stackhodler/status/1469038294591754240

Gold is able to hold selling prices in a stable quarter, we rarely find gold experiencing a decline in buying and selling prices, even though the dollar has decreased.
But it is clear, that Gold and Bitcoin are different, for now I prefer bitcoin

For this problem it may be true, but also don't forget, bitcoin can experience a decline in price over time, even beyond the predictions of people in general. But what's interesting about bitcoin is that at certain times the selling and buying prices increase quite quickly, so that investing in bitcoin can provide maximum benefits.

but the possibility seems that for generations after us, until now there has been no legalization from major countries, until finally hampering bitcoin adoption because many investors have to rethink investing in it, like us who believe in bitcoin, of course it is not a problem to invest to him with any amount, but not for ordinary people, it is different with gold that everyone has trusted

Apart from government backing of gold but not bitcoin, there are other things too. Since 1800, the innovation of technology has touched on in every area except the form of "currencies", but now it's evolved and has come with the name of crypto-currencies. It's a matter of time to get used to it.

I was made to understand that there are over 10 gold mining/producing countries of the world namely, China, Australia, United States of America, Russia, South Africa, Peru, Ghana and Canada, which sum up to the total of 244,000 metric tons of gold which have been discovered, of which 187,000 metric tons historically produced and 57,000 metric tons gotten and not 55,000 tons left, because there are still more golds left underneath the earth surface yet to be discovered, as you can see in the image below from Good search.

So that was a false statement so please kindly take correction. Thanks

https://i.ibb.co/hZ6NXm9/Polish-20220920-071656578.jpg (https://ibb.co/KLPgNrh)
Image source: Google search

You said the truth but for long term Bitcoin is much profitable than gold. But if you say the volatility of Bitcoin then holding Gold is much safe than holding Bitcoin. Because the price of gold doesn't move like Bitcoin.So we should buy and hold Bitcoin in the bear market to make the highest profit.

Actually both of them have good value in the investment field, the only difference is that one is real, the other is not real, that's the difference, but if you look at the value of course bitcoin has value, and even then if the price of bitcoin is high, if in this situation, then gold investment is good for us to buy because the value must be very tempting for that person, my only advice is to buy both it is a good and smart decision..

i guess there's a difference between buying gold and owning it sight unseen vs taking delivery of it. one of those is real and the other one you don't really control it similar to not your keys not your crypto. you don't even know if it exists necessarily. owning gold in your own physical possession might have value but to actually sell it could be a bit problematic. where you get "slippage". plus other expenses related to the actual sales process. i'm not sure owning gold is profitable for people that take delivery of it. it's more of a hobby and maybe they can profit over the longterm but even so, it's not guaranteed.

Frankly, while everyone seems to be comparing gold to BTC, all I’m wondering is why? Both are valuable in their own unique way and gold has been here for years. It can’t be compared. I wish people would understand the difference.

Yes, of course. Because gold will always be valuable, and this has been going on for thousands of years. But bitcoin is only a 10-year-old project and it is unclear how many more years it will live. So of course it's scarier.

after I think it's also true that bitcoin is only 10 years old, we don't know in the future whether it will last as long as real gold
but right now I'm just following the flow of investing both if I can afford not in large quantities the important thing is to have btc to invest and declare that I've known and have experienced the benefits of investing in btc

well and that's the thing. gold would be valuable if all the computers in the world stopped working and the internet stopped existing. because guess what, they never used to have computers or internet a hundred years ago and yet gold was a thing of value. bitcoin can't be compared to gold in that sense because it relies on a continuously operating infrastructure if that infrastructure goes away then so does your bitcoin and any perceived value it had. but we all understand that. so if someone is going to say "BTC is scarcer than gold" I highly recommend they put a big asterisk next to it.

Gold is definitely a good choice for those looking into long-term stability without feeling the negative effects of inflation. You won't earn that much by holding Gold long-term, but you'll be able to retain your purchasing power for years on end. It's the perfect store of value in times of need. Bitcoin may not be stable, but its constant fluctuations in price (volatility) makes it a good choice to grow your profits in the short term. If you know how to play your cards right, you could simply buy Bitcoin at a low price and sell it at a higher price for complete peace of mind. Then you can use the profits to buy Gold and secure your financial future.

Undeniably, Bitcoin is much scarcer than Gold with a fixed supply of no more than 21 million coins. Which asset/commodity you'd choose would depend on your daily needs. As long as you don't invest more than what you can't afford to lose, there should be nothing to worry about. Just my thoughts ;D

Bitcoin has the same problem, when selling bitcoin you will also have some slippage problems. Bitcoin is highly volatile so selling during bear season carries the risk of big losses, as the price is currently down over 60% from ATH, not to mention selling bitcoin you will be in trouble if bitcoin is illegal where you live. Gold may not be as profitable as bitcoin but its value will certainly be more stable than bitcoin.

It is not necessary to compare which type is better than the other, each type has its own function of use and depends on the intended use of each person. Why not invest in both for safety but focus on only 1.

Yeah... between Gold and Bitcoin are two different things. they excel in their respective places. such as gold which excels in physical assets and bitcoin excels in digital assets. and I think bitcoin is more suitable for investment. while gold is more suitable for savings or to maintain the value of assets. because the movement of gold prices that are not too volatile makes it suitable to be used as a guardian of the value of our assets (savings). I myself save in gold. but invest in bitcoin.

So is my saliva. And that is NOT where the similarities end.

My saliva is also encrypted with my DNA. You can´t reproduce it, without being me, but you can easily check its authenticity.
Its supply is whatever my salivary glands can produce and that supply also degenerates, as I get older. Until every last bit is produced.

So all these bullsh*t arguments about scarcity... are just empty.

1BTC will enter $x,xxx zone, then $xxx, and then just $x. Until it finally arrives at its fundamental value.

Comparing gold with Bitcoin always puts Gold in a very bad place. The most heavy argument by defenders of Gold is that it exists thousands of years ago. That's not something small but there is a reality:

1) Nobody knows how much gold (really) there is already mined in the world
2) No one knows how much gold is (really) mined each year in the world
3) No one knows how much gold (really) remains to be mined in the world
The answers to questions 1,2 and 3 for Bitcoin are yes.

Aside from the scarcity issue, which is objectively much better for BTC, Bitcoin is much more easily divisible, transportable, storable, and verifiable.

I don't have any doubt that Bitcoin will overtake gold in market cap in the next few years (not that many..)

Sometimes when I see this comparison between Gold and Bitcoin, at some point it doesn't make sense to me anymore, because it's just like comparing Cow and goat. However, it's crystal clear that Bitcoin is far more better than Bitcoin even as it's not fully embraced around the world, you could see that in terms of performance , scarcity, from of money, liquid, Mobile, freedom etc ,I can go on and on to mention them.
Just imagine when regulation, adoption is in place for Bitcoin and the amount of money in Gold is melt into Bitcoin, I guess that Gold would not even near Bitcoin in terms of comparison anymore.

they're not comparable now. gold and bitcoin are different.



there's no need to compare them as they are not really the same. gold is a physical store of value. bitcoin is not.


 well not only that but we know it will continue to exist for thousands of years in to the future. nothing is going to replace it. you can't say the same thing about bitcoin.

Well, good I didn´t even use that argument then. I am not defending gold, I´m saying BTC is worth nothing.

1-2-3 <-- Three empty sentences. The same goes for water, iron ore, oxygen, soil, etc... What a fcking bs argument.

Then the divisible, transportable, storable and verifiable <-- Sigh. So is every piece of digital information.

The market cap <-- Sure, it is possible, BTCs market cap can grow anywhere, until USDT=USD. So it can become higher than the value S&P500. But what does it really mean?

Think about it.

Everything can be. But even if gold is not in such a loss as bitcoin, many regard it as a more stable asset than cryptocurrency. Since the cryptocurrency market either collapses or jumps up, many are wary of this. Whereas gold is flat, and for many, it is a more attractive place to invest.

Both have their own advantages, each with different qualities that may or may not benefit people; gold is a mineral that for years has taken great value to the point of evolving and adapting to the needs and comfort of each individual, on the other hand, bitcoin has not been active for as long, but it has managed to grow. In my opinion, both can be great investment and savings options regardless of their characteristics and duration.

both are valuable in their respective parts. gold even though we do not know the limits but gold continues to be widely used not only for jewelry. but also used in various industries such as building and medicine. also more in other technology industries. also good for savings. and BTC with limited supply also has advantages in the digital world, which makes it easy for anyone to transact across borders. and freedom is felt when transacting in bitcoin. we don't have to worry about limits like in the bank. so gold and bitcoin are two different things. they each have their own advantages. and they are useful in their respective fields.