Is Bitcoin digital gold or digital cash?

[mrcash02]

Bitcoin is supposed to do both but at the moment bitcoin is behaving a lot closer to gold than to cash, also bitcoin has a big weakness compared to cash it is not truly anonymous and that hurts it is usage since if you want to be anonymous you need to use tumbling services.

Nothing in the world is anonymous, with the currently technology some countries have they can discover anything about anyone if they want and I think it's not a advantage of BTC as it's inexistent. Bitcoin is money like any other currency, but digital. People are using it "like gold" to increase their fortune on long term, but it can be used to buy anything.

[whizter]

Bitcoin is supposed to do both but at the moment bitcoin is behaving a lot closer to gold than to cash, also bitcoin has a big weakness compared to cash it is not truly anonymous and that hurts it is usage since if you want to be anonymous you need to use tumbling services.

Nothing in the world is anonymous, with the currently technology some countries have they can discover anything about anyone if they want and I think it's not a advantage of BTC as it's inexistent. Bitcoin is money like any other currency, but digital. People are using it "like gold" to increase their fortune on long term, but it can be used to buy anything.

yes there is no doubt about the fact that bitcoin is money, as now in some places people are using it as fiat currency, while is such places where still the facilities of bitcoin to be use it as fiat currency is not available then there people are using it as investment.

[Yutikas_11920]

Answers to this question are constantly posted on this forum and on Reddit by people who are not software engineers/developers, nor product managers. Either that or they are truly terrible at their jobs. Reddit in particular has really turned into a garbage dump, but that's something for another discussion.

Anyway, in a business context you want to build software that meets your customer's expectations, so understanding how a user makes use of your software solution is really important for smooth communication and shared understanding between management, marketing and engineering. Normally you want to write out really detailed user stories/journeys, maybe even draw diagrams or create mock-ups that demonstrate the exact problem you're trying to solve and how your thing will solve it.

Here's a teaser:

Alice is at a farmer's market and wants to buy broccoli from a vendor. How does she pay?

Here are just a few important details that we need to know first:

- What country is Alice in, and what are the economic conditions?
- How much money does she make every year/how well off is she?
- How technologically sophisticated is she/how old is she?  
- What tastes and preferences does Alice have/what prejudices her in certain ways?


We need a lot more information before we start talking about what BIP we can code up in a day. If you think about these questions only from your own perspective and experience, you're discounting the majority of people on this planet that want to use the same technology. Bitcoin's value depends mainly on how many people can safely use it, and if it's not in use by the largest number of people possible, it will not achieve it's full potential/value.

The correct answer to the question in this poll is "it depends". Bitcoin is for humans, and humans have different needs. Most likely every redditor and bitcoin.org poster's favorite potential use case, "in-person payments at high volume merchants", will not be satisfied by Bitcoin directly. Use something else for that one narrow use case if Bitcoin isn't doing it for you, and support the engineers who are working to make Bitcoin more secure and stable, goddamnit  

Bitcoin was mainly created to free people from banking sectors.At first,bitcoin was used only as a digital currency.Then its value started rising and people found it as an asset instead to invest in a long term basis.Hence,it could be called as Digital Gold.In the mean time,bitcoin can be used to buy any products or services and hence it could be also called as Digital cash.

I guess that's not the main goal in the development of the main bitcoin, indicated that his advantage is bitcoin is much better than currency and other systems. Bitcoin is indeed a bank run by every person who has it, but I'm not sure that everyone already does not use original currency in each transaction. Because only the money in every country that would legally have the authority or may be used in any country.
 

[TimeManLove]

For me, bitcoin and means of payment and money. In addition, I use bitcoins as an investment object. Very convenient and versatile financial instrument

[DoublerHunter]

In my own opinion, bitcoin is both digital gold and cash because it can do both. Bitcoin is digital gold because its value is always going up every year and we can see that and it is digital cash because a lot of stores from the different parts of the world already accepted bitcoin as another type of payment method when you are buying items or service to them. So there is no doubt that bitcoin can do both.

[Hazir]

Bitcoin is supposed to do both but at the moment bitcoin is behaving a lot closer to gold than to cash, also bitcoin has a big weakness compared to cash it is not truly anonymous and that hurts it is usage since if you want to be anonymous you need to use tumbling services.

Cash is anonymous only in p2p environment. So you are going to tell me that you are not using any 3rd party service to process your fiat payments?
You don't have a bank account, you receive your wage directly from your employer in cash form, and no one keeps tabs how much you earn?
Bitcoin was pseudonymous at best, if you want full privacy there are better altcoins (Zcash, Monero) dedicated to keep your payments confidential.

[MirkoIta]

Bitcoin takes the best of both worlds because it is both scarce store of value like gold and can be carried around easily and spent everywhere like cash.

[CuriousGeorge]

Bitcoin is supposed to do both but at the moment bitcoin is behaving a lot closer to gold than to cash, also bitcoin has a big weakness compared to cash it is not truly anonymous and that hurts it is usage since if you want to be anonymous you need to use tumbling services.

Cash is anonymous only in p2p environment. So you are going to tell me that you are not using any 3rd party service to process your fiat payments?
You don't have a bank account, you receive your wage directly from your employer in cash form, and no one keeps tabs how much you earn?
Bitcoin was pseudonymous at best, if you want full privacy there are better altcoins (Zcash, Monero) dedicated to keep your payments confidential.

but in p2p environment, the anonimity of cash is absolute unlike bitcoin just pseudonymous everywhere, all can be traced, it's like we're leaving fingerprints

[Dimelord]

Some who thinks bitcoin as a digital cash always calls for its transaction fees to be reduced so that minor purchases could be easily made with bitcoins.But at the same time,users who think bitcoin as digital gold says its security is main and it should not be compromised.Satoshi mostly called bitcoin as digital cash and at some occasions later, he used gold's aspects to explain about bitcoin.

[ivanpoldark]

We can buy immediately some goods for bitcoin, so it is digital cash. There is no such fundamental value in cryptoworld as bitcoin - so it is digital gold for years ahead at least.

[hakanf]

Bitcoin is gold. Noone will buy something with using fractions like 0.0045 etc. and these transaction speeds.

I believe that a new altcoin, that i currently don't know which one, will take the title of "Payment System" in the near future.

[molsewid]

For me its both we don't know what will the real future are and no one can tell what would be our future hence we can predict what will happen on this currency both can be use of our new technology that can better than the old generation we are in innovation of all gadgets and payment system are being more powerfull and useful.

[xIIImaL]

The thing with bitcoin is it cannot be boxed as only a kind of digital cash because more people are considering it as an investment so it is as well a store of value. It is both digital gold and digital cash because of the features it possesses but many use it as a form of investment rather than as a payment method, because of the increasing transaction fees associated with it.

I will say that bitcoin is best investment platform in the world. Most of the people prefer gold or real estate as their investment platform but bitcoin something more bigger than these options. It is the digital stock where you put all your money and make it as double in few years. Therefore, I will go for digital gold to which is going to be future physical for the people around the world.

[Mumbeeptind1963]

Bitcoin is the currency of the future is very open and dynamic, the transaction is very easy and fast

i think it is digital cash because we can trade it with other coins like cas, we can withdraw it in banks and other trusted mode of payments, i treated it like a digital cash, not a digital gold,because gold is a stone and bitcoin is a cash.

[AK47-]

Like most of the people here I too believe that bitcoin was supposed to be both. But at present moment it is more likely be represented as digital gold instead of digital cash. People are using it more as an investment rather than as a cash for doing transactions of everyday life.

[dmamigo]

Like most of the people here I too believe that bitcoin was supposed to be both. But at present moment it is more likely be represented as digital gold instead of digital cash. People are using it more as an investment rather than as a cash for doing transactions of everyday life.

I also have same thinking nearly, but it also depends on person to person, for me its like both cash and gold. Because I am using it as investment as well as I use some services which accepts Bitcoin. But ofcourse about everyday casual or physical transactions, that's very limited regarding options I have.

[Yuuto]

Like most of the people here I too believe that bitcoin was supposed to be both. But at present moment it is more likely be represented as digital gold instead of digital cash. People are using it more as an investment rather than as a cash for doing transactions of everyday life.

It leads us to the conclusions, that the biggest affair about bitcoin is that we cannot really use it well as a "digital cash" because for now, the blockchain is under way too big traffic.
Without solving that issue, we won't be able to call bitcoin as a digital cash, and the reason is very simple: regular cash is available to transfer to any bank, anywhere at any moment pretty much (but in fact, the remittance will be done during the working day)basically without paying any fee,  and you can also withdraw it any time you want.

But with BTC you cannot withdraw it insantly, because you need to wait for the confirmations, plus you need to wait for a bank transfer.
You cannot also send it into other wallet without paying the commision, and waiting at least some time, to get the confirmations.

I would call it only as a digital gold for now.

[izanagi narukami]

Bitcoin is more than a gold and more than a cash so bitcoin is digital gold cash which I'm consider bitcoin as unique internet currency that ever exist

Since bitcoin value has quite high value so it's good for investment purpose also it can be use for transaction for another advantage of bitcoin

[Rahar02]

Like most of the people here I too believe that bitcoin was supposed to be both. But at present moment it is more likely be represented as digital gold instead of digital cash. People are using it more as an investment rather than as a cash for doing transactions of everyday life.

It leads us to the conclusions, that the biggest affair about bitcoin is that we cannot really use it well as a "digital cash" because for now, the blockchain is under way too big traffic.
Without solving that issue, we won't be able to call bitcoin as a digital cash, and the reason is very simple: regular cash is available to transfer to any bank, anywhere at any moment pretty much (but in fact, the remittance will be done during the working day)basically without paying any fee,  and you can also withdraw it any time you want.

But with BTC you cannot withdraw it insantly, because you need to wait for the confirmations, plus you need to wait for a bank transfer.
You cannot also send it into other wallet without paying the commision, and waiting at least some time, to get the confirmations.

I would call it only as a digital gold for now.

Yes, for now and maybe for a long time as people tend to save their bitcoin and using fiat money for daily transaction.
I think, bitcoin being used as online currency to send it out the country which consider as good option to do that.
Another option is convert bitcoin into fiat money, and it is categorized as digital gold to store of value.

[Winner]

When Bitcoin just started, the people that were using it didn't really know how expensive Bitcoin would be mostly because they didn't know how many people will be using Bitcoin for payments.
Bitcoin is not really something that is going to replace the Currency system, it could cause the Currency system to have a little bit of a downtrend though the whole Bitcoin Project was just so that Bitcoin would be noticed more as a collectible item.