Bitcoin Forum

Just imagine you wake up one day to find out that there was huge asteroid that just dropped on earth.
The news is all over and then the world finds out this

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/06/21/Hz26o.png

Although it's just a made up thing yet there can be such a possibility. We never know.
But what we do know is bitcoin's total supply is just 21 million and that makes it scarce.
It's more precious than gold.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CtvdmZoPmxV/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng%3D%3D

But what if it is an asteroid that is capable of destroying the world like what scientists researched on to have caused the extinction of dinosaurs the and capable to destroy human existence for the next era to begin?  ;D

Without Asteroid, I read about countries that are discovering gold. This is an article I found while I search just for Africa countries:

Five Biggest GoldDiscoveries in Africa in 2022 (https://energycapitalpower.com/5-biggest-gold-discoveries-africa-2022/#:~:text=Recent%20exploration%20surveys%20in%20Uganda,currently%20standing%20at%20%2412.8%20trillion.)

That is just Africa.

Did you know that gold are buried in oceans which are far more than the ones on the earth surface that all are not yet discovered? No technology to mine that, at least for now.

Did you also know that the earth crust contain far more than the gold on earth surface and beneath the oceans? No technology to mine that too and that will not be possible as it can deteriorate how solid the earth is.

We all know bitcoin's scarcity is far more guaranteed than golds, but this is the subjective part:


Obviously most people still value gold far more than bitcoin — the marketcap difference itself is enough proof.

I am not sure if someone has ever claimed that gold is scarce. Because a huge amount of landmass has still not used for mining discovery. A major portion of Africa is still undiscovered. So gold is not scarce in any way. Also gold is not used as an investment anywhere in the world. Gold is mainly used for capital protection. Historically gold price has always shown a steady increase in price keeping the inflation in mind. That's why Gold is precious but not scarce.

On the other hand bitcoin has a limited supply if 21 million. So it is expected that it's price will skyrocket anytime in the future owing to its scarcity. But this feature is only pushing bitcoin out from being a currency system to an investment. So the future is pretty unclear.

I hope the asteroid will not hit anyone's head (Haha). First of all i do not believe these types of information which have no solid base, and from what i recall, this news has already shared on this platform and many has already compared the same property of BTC with gold.

The point is, gold is good in its place and BTC is good in its place, If there will be so much gold this will increase the supply and a time will reach where this supply will overtake demand. But we all know that BTC is scare and gold is not, No ones know how much gold is under the earth crust, but we do know that BTC has 21 million supply which will be mined till 2140 at the current hash rate.

@Charles-Tim That's just spitballing at that point. OP made a pretty sound argument about the alteration of gold's supply since the current supply of gold in the planet is scarce and finite and the only logical way it could be supplanted with is through an asteroid impact. That's just stupid and a little cynical in my opinion. And yes that includes the ones that couldn't be mined due to the current limits in technology.

In the discussion of immutability however OP, while gold can be made infinite virtually, supply isn't the only thing that makes it valuable. It has aesthetic properties that makes it a must-have by every one on the planet, not to mention its practical applications in technology, business, and other ventures which strays from the argument that gold isn't as great as bitcoin cause I could easily add more gold into the system of supply.

There's a lot of gold deep within our planet, the only problem is that we don't have efficient ways of getting it out. When the digging operation exceeds the value of gold mined it's pointless to try.
What would have to happen for us to increase the supply? One of two things.
Either the demand would have to be very high, but for that we'd have to start using much more gold to produce electronics (or go back to using gold coins for payment), that's one, or the cost of deep mining would have to go down so that we could start accessing new deposits.

A giant Asteroid falling on Earth will get us all killed. No one will benefit from that quintillion of gold but the bacteria it brings to the surface.

There was news about $13T worth of gold in Uganda https://www.mining-technology.com/features/uganda-gold-deposit-investment/
which I guess the gold was sort of unattractive but definitely it's still to be extracted from the ground, there is no value to it yet. Gold is useful in making electronic products and it's still rare making gold a sound money still since ancient times. It's the preferred investment as part of diversification.

This is good BTC has a 21M Bitcoin supply but for the Gold asteroid how is it relatable? Is anyone going to grab the gold from that asteroid? I know you are excited about the Bitcoin future but bro about the gold asteroid theory it's just theory and you can't bring that gold to the economic circle so Unless we get that supply the assumed supply of gold will be considered as a dummy.

Gold is currently not scared of the BITCOIN because you can compare it with market capital, yeah yeah I know about future potential but we are in the present so currently Gold is not at all scared. I think most of us have forgotten Ukraine vs Russia's impact on the economic circle so what if WW3 happens I think it will be a nightmare for technology and Bitcoin as well. So enjoy the Journey with Bitcoin in the present.

Well, I think any body who values gold more than bitcoin does so solely because gold is from ancient times, it's not man made like bitcoin, and it was once a currency and over time, have proven it's legitimacy and worth..

Bitcoin on the other hand is still pretty new to many people, alot of persons don't really understand bitcoin yet nor how it work, so they are still skeptical about the legitimacy of bitcoin, Infact, some still see bitcoin as a bubble, for such people, when you ask them to choose between bitcoin and gold, be rest assure they will always choose gold.

The force of demand and supply will always affect the price of a product no matter how precious it might be. If the news about large quantity of gold in Africa is true and the right technological tools are used to mine more gold, the price might be affected by the supply. Gold has maintained its position as on the reliable store of value but it's unlimited supply might be it's undoing.

Bitcoin has advantage over gold because if it's limited supply. Nobody know what the future holds but I am predicting that bitcoin will be more valuable than gold. There are.people that who are  gold maximalists they believe that trading and holding in gold is the only means of investing wisely. But Bitcoin has shown a lot of resilience and consistency in its operations. Gold is generally accepted in every country and it is a well-known commodity. In the future Bitcoin will be more valuable than gold because it might have wider acceptance. we can not predict the limit of gold but the limit of bitcoin is known.

Wow that really puts it into perspective for you, and this is extremely accurate. All the gold and silver and precious metals that are out in space is an unfathomable amount of money!!! Just floating in space!!!! The odds of this asteroid hitting earth are slim to none but still, it's out there lol. Bitcoin is super scarce 😱

I don't think too far like human can harvest gold from asteroids or other planets. Even on Earth, we don't know exact physical gold we have. Scientists can only make estimations but they are not exact numbers and the physical gold human can harvest on Earth will change with technologies we have.

The important fact is we can not know the maximum storage of physical gold on Earth. Estimation can not be compared to the exact number of Bitcoin total supply which is 21 millions.

Gold total supply can increase in future with more advanced technologies for getting gold on Earth and from the space but total available bitcoin will be less than 21 millions in future because more people will lose their bitcoins. This fact makes Bitcoin is a better investment asset than gold.

The analogy is like this, Gold is like a standard class car while Bitcoin is like a Ferrari or Lamborghini. Here it is very clear that standard class cars are seen more on the road, while Lambo or Ferrari are rarely seen on the road. Yes, there are, but the percentage is lower than standard class cars. Almost all people have gold, but if Bitcoin is only spread 21 million pieces and this number might be reduced because the wallet that is stored Bitcoin can no longer be accessed.
For ordinary people who are not familiar with Bitcoin, they prefer to play it safe by buying Gold because its liquidity is higher than Bitcoin. The price of Bitcoin is still determined by the large number of requests and offers on the Crypto market, for Investors who want to make quick profits they prefer Bitcoin over Gold.

1.Such asteroid would probably destroy the human civilization.
2.Even if such "golden asteroid" lands safely on the planet, this 700 quintillion USD gold would be enough to destroy the global gold scarcity, ruin the gold price and render gold useless. ;D

Gold is scarce not because it's rare, but because the cost of research and mining is just too high. Gold would be really cheap, if the cost of mining was low and there were gold mines everywhere. I'm sure that there's plenty of gold underground, we just can't mine it in an efficient way.
The same thing partially applies to Bitcoin. Bitcoin is scarce not only because of the 21 million cap, but because mining BTC is difficult and expensive.

When it comes to gold. There is lots of it on the planet but the cost to mine it is very expensive hence the supply is capped. This is similar to how anyone can mine Bitcoin with their laptop. However it’s very expensive due to the electricity and hence why most people don’t mine Bitcoin.

So there might be a star which has tons and tons of gold. However how will you extract this gold and bring it back to earth? Seems impossible pretty much.

It was Michael Saylor who made me aware of the fact that Gold is not as scarce as I would
have previously thought.

Its kind of like the demand drives supply. As demand increases and new technology is
developed new Gold reserves are found and its able to be extracted.

Gold is used in applications such as the Space industry, medical and electronics as well
as decorative.

Bitcoin is deflationary, coins get permanently locked and forgotten through human error and
of course it has a cap of 21,000,000.

Slowly but surely people are and will realise this advantage Bitcoin has.

Even after considering that everyone will have this much worth the whole economy will be disturbed and normal functioning will not be there because working class would not be there.So giant asteroid will not benefit us in way we expect it to be moreover do you think governments will make this happen as they will take it all under their custody because it's government property after that.But what devastating affect it will have on earth and survival of people we can't imagine as have seen in movies so let it surround on outer space only.

There's a difference between scarce and maximum supply.

Scarce doesn't mean the supply is fixed, it just need to be hard to get it and has a value.

Something that has a maximum supply is obviously scarce because not everyone can get it as long as they didn't mine or buy it.

So I'd say Gold and Bitcoin are scarce commodities, but there's no evidence Gold has a maximum supply unlike Bitcoin.

If gold is not scarce and yet it has the same value that it has today many people won't care that much about Bitcoin because the gold is enough to bring their dreams into reality.

To me it is very very hard to get Gold, to get Bitcoin, Fiat money is all you need,  yes you can buy gold too but gold is not easy to find either, that is why wherever there's gold there's always blood that follows so my final answer is gold is as scare as Bitcoin.

Bitcoin just packed a better advantage than Gold, that's why I will choose Bitcoin over gold if I am asked to choose one.

If you believe that anything is possible, people will accidentally find another large amount of gold in the world, also there is a chance that one day someone can modify and create more bitcoins in the future. Anything is possible, and bitcoin is no exception. Don't try to devise fanciful or unrealistic assumptions to exaggerate bitcoins beyond necessity. Gold is still a scarce and very valuable metal for us, bitcoin is a virtual asset but also brings values and benefits to us. I prefer both and invest in both rather than compare them.

This one maybe a made up thing but in reality there are asteroids which we found already that has lot of gold than Earth but we don't have the source to reach that place for now and the cost of extraction will exceed the actual worth of gold that is why still Gold is trusted but who knows what future holds like inter planet transport like Elon claiming by that time we may have something else that will be valuable than gold.

And yes for the fact bitcoin is scarce since its got limited supply.

Well, even if gold isn't as scarce as Bitcoin, it still has the trust of the world and people don't believe in Bitcoin as much as they do in Gold because they know that the supply of Gold, no matter how big it is, will never get cleared from existence no matter what happens because it exists in reality which means it has a physical existence while Bitcoin is just a digital currency and a technology and we all know that technologies are not really that scarce as they are always replaceable.

We all know that there can't be any other asset to replace Gold until the existence of humanity but we all know that Bitcoin is something that can be replaced by something else in the future, something with better functionalities and properties can take its place.

I don't think one is more precious than the other because actually they are all precious things and bring different values ​​to our uses. Since this is a hypothetical story where the OP mentioned a negative incident to gold, I can also think of negative effects from solar storms and unstoppable atmospheric defenses, causing for the power supply and the internet system and above to crash :) , there are actually a lot of things in life that are quite negative and in other words the reasons for our extinction, not just space disasters, things What takes place in the earth itself is also full of mysteries. And back to the content about which value, this is also from an individual or collective perspective, we all have our own insights and decisions and choices.

If such a thing actually happens, it's clear that gold would quickly lose the vast majority of its value, and it would no longer be considered a standard, something financially reliable. But how likely is such an event? And wouldn't a bigger issue of a huge asteroid be a deadly explosion?
That being said, what's more realistic is that there's already a lot of gold on Earth, much more than anticipated. And over the years, there've been some news indicating that (Charles-Tim linked some).
Bitcoin is scarce, there's no way around it. However, it's also very volatile in value, and I think people still appreciate gold more largely because it's more stable in price in practice, even if in theory it might suddenly change at some point.

Firstly, I haven't made an "argument" that gold is scarce. Checkout the question mark in the title of this thread.
This post was more of a fun post just to tell people that bitcoin is more scarce and more valuable than gold.
Secondly, I didn't know a lot of Gold is already present on Earth. Thanks @Charles-Tim

Actually I don't really understand what op is trying to pass out but I know the possibility of this happening might be minimal because it is going to cause some great damage that will lead to lose of lives and infractures making millions of people displaced. We should never think of this in any form because because it is going to be a big disaster to the world create waves that could cause sunami and earth quake that will display so many people and can also cause death rate to increase drastically cause illness and poverty to the world.

And so is the countless threads that we have been, and this is going to be unending debate in my opinion.

•  BTC is scarcer than gold. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5399021.0)
•  Why Bitcoin must surpass gold (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5455931.0)
•  Do you think a Bitcoin is worth more than a metric ton of gold? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5408072.0)
•  Bitcoin VS. GOLD (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2272001.0)
•  BTC or Gold Investment? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5407203.0)
•  Bitcoin vs Gold: The Age Old Debate (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=953939.0)

In any case though, whichever is scarce, whether it's Bitcoin or Gold, the best thing to do is take advantage of it because we all know the basic adage of supply and demand are going to affect the price of both of this assets in the future. If you are a Gold bug then accumulate, if you are a Bitcoin enthusiast, continue to stack sats and HODL.

It's a joke but maybe actually is not that far away from reality: in the future we'll have space mining, so who knows what some companies will bring back to earth. Many minerals that today are scarse could become common. Of course it's not something that will happen quickly so whoever holds gold is safe but it will be interesting to see how things will develop.

I agree! Gold's market prices activity in, in a very slow and inefficient way. For example, if a country were able to find and mine a market-impactful amount of gold supply, the pricing in wouldn't occur until the additional reserves move from dealers, to institutions. That process can take weeks, months, even years depending how much supply results. The metal will just be speculative if something like what OP outlines, or a scenario similar to what I outlined (at scale) happens. point being - gold marketcap is just speculation. No one can prove that supply. One day, it could 1/100th if enough powerful holders choose to make that happen, or supply increased enough.

But you also don't need to worry, all of that is just human imagination, and with the development of technology like today, there is only one thing that threatens the security of the earth that we will destroy it immediately.

But one thing I see in most recent threads comparing gold to bitcoin is that many people are looking to lower the potential of gold and enhance the potential of bitcoin. I know we're on a bitcoin forum, and bitcoin should take precedence, but giving bogus examples like this really isn't necessary. I believe that even without comparing the two assets, we would all choose bitcoin over gold.

That's right, we shouldn't talk much or just argue about our thoughts without looking at the facts. If bitcoin is indeed better and superior to gold, then why does gold still have a market cap 10 times larger than bitcoin, and more people are still looking for gold than bitcoin? If someone says bitcoin is too young compared to gold, stop arguing and come back to this topic when bitcoin surpasses gold in demand and capitalization.

Gold & bitcoin are two rare assets but bitcoin has maximum supply. Different from bitcoin, we never know how much the total gold supply is, where every time a new reserve is found, the amount will increase. After all, everyone must spend some money to own one or both of these assets, but of course both also have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Both of these assets can be treated equally by investors as investment assets, but bitcoin may be more profitable due to its high volatility. In addition, bitcoin can also be detrimental to its holder which is referred to as a risk.

My point is that bitcoin has the same properties as gold in that it is scarce in mining and has the advantage of being easy to carry because it is in digital form. However, it cannot be completely replaced because gold is a secure, graspable, and controllable physical form that does not need any high-tech intervention such as the internet, encryption,... While bitcoin is a form of asset in cyberspace, it is subject to many technical factors and the risk of loss. Therefore, bitcoin or virtual currencies are only a storage option and cannot completely replace the value of gold in the future.

There's a lot of gold hidden in the ground and in the oceans, or even in asteroids, but it's all very expensive to mine. This means that this gold will be slowly increasing the supply on the market and won't crash the price.

Always remember that the price is a function of supply and demand. Bitcoin total supply is well known, but supply available on the market is unknown. Any day someone can decide to dump hundreds of coins that they were holding for years. It's even worse with demand - it's unclear whether people buy it with intention to hold for years no matter what, or if they are just speculator who want to make quick profit and then wait for a new low to repeat the process.

and also do take note that not all people are comfortable in dealing with bitcoin. a lot are still on the conservative type. holding tangible assets like gold. so even if we say, btc will be scarcer than gold, still some won't go for btc as they have various reasons not to.
now, the decision depends on how a person is looking at this market. or if you have the means, why not invest in both, especially if you are also a crypto user. both have pros and cons, and you should know how to work around on these cons.

As fictitious as it may seem, it’s something that could be the case. Perhaps, not an asteroid but, some new discovery that lead to other discoveries and the next thing, we’ve got more gold than would have been hoped for in the next thousand years.
When the case is turned to bitcoin, it’s finite value remains that but, if I were to take a perspective from the skeptics point of view, I suppose they would like to oppose the above with a statement like,
‘What if Satoshi Nakamoto just drops in out of the blue’ increases the capped value and add some more changes to the network…

We all making imaginations and assumptions!

All this still rests on the fact that Bitcoin has a known total supply, whereas gold has no maximum supply. There is a possibility that a very huge ton of gold could be discovered any day, and as you have described, if such a thing happens without killing us all before the use of the gold is made, then I think it's going to still reduce the current worth of gold because if everyone has like $93 billion worth of gold, they can sell it at any price they deem fit. As such, it will reduce the gold price in the market. Since Bitcoin has a limited supply, if demand is higher than supply, the price will shoot up.

And it's all just a hypothesis, an illusion of bitcoin investors, but it's not real. We should be more realistic with what's going on that gold is still a scarce metal, and the demand for it is still much higher than bitcoin. Bitcoin will not be able to surpass gold in terms of demand and market capitalization for the foreseeable future. That's the truth that I'm seeing, I don't see any delusional theory being discussed that will happen and depreciate the value of gold.

I would call this more "low value topic" considering that on the topic of Bitcoin - Gold there are hundreds of topics and I really do not think that anything useful can be said more. Besides, there is no point in hypothesizing what would happen if a large asteroid hit the earth because then all the gold and all Bitcoin, among other things, would become completely irrelevant and worthless.

According to some estimates, in about fifty years gold mining outside our planet will become profitable. Have you heard of Psyche 16? It's an asteroid that supposedly has $10 000 quadrillion worth of gold in it, if anyone can even imagine that number ::)

you have a point there, you have a very fair view of these two assets, what people are trying to deny is that gold is still being trusted and used more than bitcoin.  bitcoin is still something of an uncertainty and can still be replaced in the future with better technology.  But with gold, at least it has been around for thousands of years and still stands as the most valuable asset and is still absolutely trusted by people.
Bitcoin is a great invention, it has many outstanding advantages over other asset classes and especially it brings wealth to many people. but that doesn't mean it will surpass gold, surpass everything in this world to become a god, people are exaggerating about bitcoin.

That's a very big "If" situation which isn't going to happen anytime soon on this planet. Gold is not scarce, we haven't even explored the whole earth right now. So there may be some countries still which has Gold underneath it but still not discovered. Bitcoin is true scarcity, 21 million pre-defined by the God aka Satoshi Nakamoto. Many of the original miners have surely lost their Bitcoin so I think almost 20% of the total supply might not be accessible.

In my opinion, over time gold will not be scarce anymore, we will have more advanced technologies to mine harder places, or chemicals that can make gold. Bitcoin is different, the total supply is 21 million, cannot be increased, they will become rarer and rarer over time

Intriguing viewpoint, but lets flip the coin, shall we? Gold's been our pal for eons, no question! But does longevity necessarily imply indispensability? The mighty dinosaurs enjoyed a longer reign, and we all know their fate

True, Bitcoin's roller-coaster ride and unpredictability give us jitters. However, isn't this inherent to any budding technology? Can we reject it just because it’s novel and unorthodox? If Bitcoin gets dethroned, wouldn't that be the law of tech evolution? Unlike Bitcoin, gold cant adapt - it remains merely gold

Bitcoin won’t ascend to divinity, agreed, and such claims are hyperboles. Yet, let’s not downplay the might of innovation. Perhaps, we'll soon be trading Bitcoin

Around 208,874 tonnes of gold has been mined throughout history (https://www.gold.org/goldhub/data/how-much-gold) in estimation. You can create your account log in and download the report (https://www.gold.org/download/file/7588/above-ground-gold-stocks.xlsx)

How much gold is in the world? (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/sp/chart-how-much-gold-is-in-the-world/)
An estimation on underground gold reserves, it is about 53,000 tonnes of gold (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/sp/chart-how-much-gold-is-in-the-world/) in identified reserves.

We can have more gold from other planets or asteroids in future with more advanced technology to harvest gold in the space.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/how-much-gold-is-in-the-world.jpg

It is just a made-up story, but if this is true, then for sure we are all dead because that is a huge asteroids that is capable of destroying our planet; if not, then for sure half of the earth. But I know the point is about how valuable it is. The same is true with Bitcoin; it's just like when you've been able to dig up a working hard drive that has tons of bitcoin on it, which also makes you wealthy.

I think we are talking about the possibilities, so there are a lot of things that can possibly happen but the chances of them happening are very low or near zero, we can make different assumptions and create made-up stories about how the supply of gold can increase significantly, we can also do that for Bitcoin saying there can be something created that might make Bitcoin become less worthy than now since we are talking about possibilities.

If we talk about what currently exists, we shouldn't call gold not scarce, because even if there is more gold to be found, we haven't found it yet and that is just a possibility and we don't live off of possibilities but we believe in what we have right now, so gold is also scarce and that is the reason why it's a precious metal.

Funny, for what is worth, that kind of wishful thinking about gold falling from the sky is not possible in the first, even if it happens, do you think they will give you a share from it? Hell no! The rich and mighty will hold on to it and still continue to oppress the poor.