Bitcoin will never be as good as gold and why ultimatly it will fail.

[benjamindees]

Gold can not have different competing 'versions' or 'flavors'.

Silver, copper, aluminum, platinum, palladium?

[astonix]

Sweft, none of your arguments make any logical sense.

Firstly, Gold is only costly store and guard, due to how much Gold is worth. If Gold was worth a lot less, no one would bother paying to guard it. Also, you say it's only worth as much as people are willing to pay? That's how EVERYTHING gets its price. BTC is only worth as much as people are willing to pay for it. If the value of BTC was to skyrocket, I'm sure some people with a lot of money might invest in securing their wallets and computers more so than usual.

[trentzb]

I don't really get how alternate p2p currencies would cause Bitcoin to fail. If you store value in Bitcoin and there are 10 other p2p currencies you would of course be able to exchange value between them via any number of exchange houses that would pop up. Bitcoin hasn't really caused other virtual currencies (p2p or not), to fail has it?

[astonix]

Other P2P currencies would only cause Bitcoin to fail IF there was high demand for the other currencies, AND no one was trading those other currencies for Bitcoin. The high demand for the other currencies would make investment move from Bitcoin to the other P2P currencies initially, causing Bitcoin's value to drop. If Bitcoin was then to go on a marketing and advertising rally, it would probably get more investment as popularity grew for it again. Just my thoughts anyway.

[Sweft]

Sweft, none of your arguments make any logical sense.

Firstly, Gold is only costly store and guard, due to how much Gold is worth. If Gold was worth a lot less, no one would bother paying to guard it. Also, you say it's only worth as much as people are willing to pay? That's how EVERYTHING gets its price. BTC is only worth as much as people are willing to pay for it. If the value of BTC was to skyrocket, I'm sure some people with a lot of money might invest in securing their wallets and computers more so than usual.

Gold is only worth how much people are willing to pay for it.

Part of that is input energy.

Gold requires energy to mine.

Bitcoins require energy to mine.

What's the difference?

Bitcoins are much more easily concealable, transferable and encrypt able.  Gold is cumbersome and hard to deal with.

[jprowl]

trentzb, good question. I am referring that P2P currencies will inflate in supply and their value will go down causing people not to use them as a store of value. Yes you would beable to exchange between P2P currencies and that is the very thing, the total amount of P2P currency in existence would increase. The better way to think about it is not in terms of total supply of bitcoin currency, but as in total supply of P2P currency as they are all the same, ofcourse different ones would have more on issue and others would have larger market penetration which would influence their value. As a new P2P currency is created, the greater amount of P2P currency would be on issue.

[astonix]

Bitcoins are much more easily concealable, transferable and encrypt able.  Gold is cumbersome and hard to deal with.

I don't really see how that has any major affect on the value of BTC or Gold. Gold is a commodity, whilst BTC is a P2P currency so there's obviously going to be the differences you pointed out, that doesn't mean one is better than the other.

[ryepdx]

The better way to think about it is not in terms of total supply of bitcoin currency, but as in total supply of P2P currency as they are all the same, ofcourse different ones would have more on issue and others would have larger market penetration which would influence their value.

Well yes. The same is true of fiat currency and precious metals, though. The fact is that there will always be competition no matter what you're talking about. It is unrealistic to expect to sustain a monopoly on anything, though near-monopolies will inevitably arise from time to time. But you don't see people dumping their Facebook shares just because Google's starting a social network of their own, thus diluting Facebook's value. And you certainly don't see people dumping gold because someone struck a fresh, rich (rhetorical) vein of silver that'll double the total amount of silver in the world.

The fact is that P2P currency is an entire category of exchange unto itself. Bitcoin doesn't need to be the only player in order to retain its value. If new P2P currencies spring up, they will face the same uphill battles against Bitcoin that new statist currencies against the other more established statist currencies.

To go from "oh no, there will be competition" to "we will fail" is a huge non-sequitur. Anyone who does anything worth doing should expect competition, but that does not mean they should expect to fail. On the contrary: knowing they will have competition, they should work all the harder so that when competition does arise they will be able to meet it and overcome it.

[BubbleBoy]

You are ignoring a little something called network effects. Gold2 exists and it's called platinum, palladium or many rare earth or long lived isotopes that can only be produced in nuclear reactors and are highly valuable for modern medicine. There's great value of being the first, and gold was.

[westkybitcoins]

Gold is stupid and useless.

You have no clue what you're talking about.

Gold is the most useless commodity.

Copper, silver, oil, wheat all have multiple uses.  Gold is pretty much useless to me and I could care less if it cost 1$ or 1000000$.

That opinion says more about your skewed perspective than about gold.

It's difficult to transport

?!!!

What are you, a billionaire?! $150,000 in gold is only 100 ounces... not even 10 pounds. Try carrying that around using $20 bills.

and costly to store and guard. 

Moreso than... what? Silver? Cash? Land? Seriously, what are you trying to compare gold to that this would even pop up in your mind?

It makes no sense as a store of value or currency, since it's difficult to exchange. 

Again, what is your basis for comparison? Of course you dont buy bread with an ounce of gold. I dont pay the pizza guy with a $100 bill either. Gold is one of the most liquid assets in the world as far as actually exchanging assets though.

It is a store of value in as much as quacks are willing to buy it and opprotunistic quacks are willing to mine it for them at significant profits.

I'll say it again... if gold were as common as dirt, we would be using it everywhere... the only reason we don't is because its scarcity makes it too precious. If you can't even understand why it would be so useful, then you really need to quit trying to talk about it, otherwise you just sound ignorant and clueless.

[killer2021]

Gold and bitcoin compliment each other.

Bitcoin is designed to repalce fiat, not gold/silver.

Lets get that straight!

[Maxxx]

I thought that is a funny picture in relation to bitcoins, I know it's not the same thing, but 'kidds' are mining a type of electronic currency.

Why hasn't anyone addressed the issues I raised? nobody has refuted anything, some of the replies appear that some of the posters have not read anything I have written like the first poster who just blurted out that it is far too early to sell at $30 and a recent poster here simply showed annoyance and and suggested that a subforum be created for those who wish to post information on why bitcoin will fail.

Is everyone trying to 'keep the faith'?

Many people don't care what you have to say, because the Bitcoin economy keeps expanding. New exchanges keep popping up. Your argument is tired and old. It's not so much faith but instead the value placed behind a private currency that the production of is not centrally controlled.

You are looking at it wrong if you think it should replace metals as well.

[killer2021]

So what?  There is no problem with competition from future emerging P2P currencies.  Competition is good.  Let the weak ones die and the fittest survive.

amen. Let the battles begin!

[Fakeman]

While I am a fan of precious metals, the OP makes some very weak points. Gold doesn't hold value because of lack of competition by any stretch, as others have mentioned. Copper and silver have been used as money for ages as well. In a sense gold is not as 'useful' as e.g. the platinum group metals which have widespread industrial uses for their catalytic and other properties, but that actually serves to keep prices more stable than other precious metals. Gold has a staying power that can't be expected from a digital currency, but that doesn't mean that digital currencies can't serve a purpose too. That said, if gold went to $300 overnight I'd back up the truck, but if bitcoin prices went down by 80% overnight you'd have to be nuts to put down your life savings.

[amincd]

OP ignores network effects. An infinite number of p2p currencies can be created, but only one will have the largest community of users, and the greatest security in its block-chain, and for these reasons, any casual user wanting a store of value in a p2p currency would choose the market leader over the variants. This network effect has a positive feedback loop, where people want to use it because it's the largest currency, which makes it larger, which leads to more people wanting to use.

The network effect is why social networking sites like Facebook continue to get larger, and small social networks that have similar features cannot gain traction. The value of the network increases exponentially as the network gets larger.

Of course, bitcoin still has a relatively small user-base. The network effect will cement its position as the market leader in p2p currencies only IF it continues becoming more attractive to users due to the services that people can use with it.

[srb123]

The value isn't in the Mining, its in the users.

I think it's the same as Desktop Operating Systems. Yes, Linux is probably better than Windows, technically, but the users, and therefore the developers (and vise versa.) just aren't there.

Bitcoin2 will appear, but it will need significant advantages over bitcoin to gain value, and even then it will take many years longer to reach the limited success that Bitcoin has seen so far, because the idea is no longer new, and likely early adopter will be already fully vested in bitcoin. Hmm, probably the same reason the banks and governments aren't jumping into bitcoin.

[Ten98]

Selling them at $30 would be foolish and way too early. Bitcoin is only just starting to emerge and will continue to rise in price for as long as people have interest in it.

Wow, you look pretty silly right about now huh? 

[ElectricMucus]

Selling them at $30 would be foolish and way too early. Bitcoin is only just starting to emerge and will continue to rise in price for as long as people have interest in it.

Wow, you look pretty silly right about now huh? 

Necrobumping is a pretty good indicator on the collapse of an online community.

[sukiho]

bitcoins is the best currency yet invented, gold is totally impracticable as a currency these days, even as an investment it has big disadvantages. for one, who actually has gold? most people have IOUs. how much does it cost to shift a large amount?

[kokjo]

OP is a troll.
OMG here we go again...