It costs less to mine gold than it does to mine Bitcoin

[Mike Mayor]

It might cost less energy but it probably costs a lot more for the equipment then bitcoin. You also not guaranteed anything with gold mining. You need to add in all costs to work this out and you need to add in that gold mining does just use the energy it also destroys the environment and can be hazardous to your health and noone has died mining bitcoin but olebty have on mining expeditions.  

Interesting topic btw. I also so many people are interested and have a lot to say. Comments are interesting, to say the least.

[Aptekary]

First of all, it is necessary to mention that the opportunities to extract bitcoin are available for every person in the world, but to extract gold, it is difficult not only because of the lack of resources, but also because of the lack of a personal source as such.  For bitcoin you only need equipment and knowledge.

[AjithBtc]

One thing that they clearly haven't taken into account, is the fact that gold mining causes environmental damage on many other levels as well.
You shouldn't just look at carbon emissions, but also at other forms of pollution caused by gold mining.

In most of the western world, there are pretty strict regulations on how you can mine for gold, but that isn't the case in most of the third world.
There they still use mercury to recover gold, which heavily pollutes the soil.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5129257/ (Heavy Metal Pollution from Gold Mines: Environmental Effects and Bacterial Strategies for Resistance)

Carbon emissions due to high power consumption is something that should be tackled from the root of the problem. Switch over to greener forms of energy production.
IMO we should really have another look at nuclear energy, since it's currently the most cost effective, safest and cleanest form of energy available.

Sources: https://www.zdnet.com/article/nuclear-less-co2-than-solar-hydro-biomass/
https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/magazines/bulletin/bull21-1/21104091117.pdf (Is Solar Power More Dangerous Than Nuclear?)

I need to make it clear that nuclear power production is not safe, not safe and not a way to keep our environment cleaner. It might be the cost effective way, and I've seen the effects of nuclear power production impacts over human beings as well over the fishes. The solution I prefer is production of power through solar plants which seems to be the better and the finest way. Carbon emissions from the large scale mining farms will also be very high, a better power source without harming the environment needs to be innovated.

[Gibreil]

In some point it may be true. But let us take a look on the supply of gold, is it numerous that it can be easy to mine? It may be cost less than mining bitcoin but it is difficult to find. Gold is just a resemblance of mining in bitcoin. Therefore, it is not right to compare mining in bitcoin and mining a gold literally.

[chanler]

Do you mean mining gold directly from the earth? I think that it may be very expensive when there is no gold resource in your country. Or you don't have any skill or right for mining gold. Mining gold is actually also very difficult and not everybody can do it. But if you mean that buying gold, it may be true.

[Dreamchaser21]

In some point it may be true. But let us take a look on the supply of gold, is it numerous that it can be easy to mine? It may be cost less than mining bitcoin but it is difficult to find. Gold is just a resemblance of mining in bitcoin. Therefore, it is not right to compare mining in bitcoin and mining a gold literally.

The supply of gold is undetermined and that's why its value is still less compare to bitcoin which is only have limited supply. Bitcoin and gold mining are both costly because you have to get advance technology for you to mine, especially on gold which requires a lot of force work while bitcoin can be mine with minimal personnel.

[Yaunfitda]

But it is also very expensive just to buy gold right?

But the main point here is how are you going to profit? If mining gold cost less then I'm sure your profit will be less as well.

As compare to bitcoin wherein you need a lot of computing power to mine, but in the long run the rewards are very fulfilling as it might give you a better ROI than gold.

[Sithara007]

You are not considering the actual cost of gold mining. Here is a bit of information for you:

https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/12158

Gold mining have been devastating the tropical rain-forest and causing irreversible damage. It is causing mercury poisoning to the indigenous people who live in the forest. Many of the indigenous tribes are getting wiped out due to the genocides being perpetrated by gold miners. And this is happening not just in Brazil, but also in other countries such as Venezuela and Peru as well.

[AmoreJaz]

You are not considering the actual cost of gold mining. Here is a bit of information for you:

https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/12158

Gold mining have been devastating the tropical rain-forest and causing irreversible damage. It is causing mercury poisoning to the indigenous people who live in the forest. Many of the indigenous tribes are getting wiped out due to the genocides being perpetrated by gold miners. And this is happening not just in Brazil, but also in other countries such as Venezuela and Peru as well.

thats right! mining gold is not for all. the initial investment is high that not everybody can afford of. aside from that, you should have sufficient knowledge when it comes to gold mining.
bitcoin mining is different. you can mine btc even under your mom's basement or practically everywhere as long as you have the source of energy.

[Broly46]

It’s a flaw argument, you think bitcoin mining never create pollution other than carbon footprint? All the mining equipment used to mine gold, chemicals, tools, the process of devastating the environment to detect gold, blah blah etc. You think bitcoin did any better? All the equipment used to mine bitcoin bitcoin miners, come at the cost of environment destruction, the chemical used to produce the miners, the rare earths used inside the miners, they’re all contribute to earth destruction. Bitcoin is not greener tech than anyone think they’re, of course you can argue we can go back to CPU mining and our operation can be greener by using greener mining process and avoid using mining equipment from the illegal sources, we can also argue there’s greener way to harvest gold too, but people want profit out of everything else, they are willing sacrifice anything to get some profit out of the hard work, and going greener operation will add to more cost to the profit that can be made, yes, going greener is going to cost more money, in these level, I can assume gold mining is more profitable than all the idiots who mining bitcoin with all the resources available to the world, ok some argue gold mining make up more amount of money per day compare to bitcoin, roughly 5-10x more marketcap and thus more pollutions, don’t forget we got thousands of crypto that’s mineable, while we have only less than 300 mineable minerals in the periodic table, you can argue we can mine all the minerals in the world and still produce more pollution, in the end, crypto mining is highly scalable, it’s not limited to bitcoin only, and not limited to periodic table too, you try to combine all the bitcoin eth lite coin monero blah blah mining and compare it to gold again? Then you want to preach proof of stake, yeah, it’s full of flaws, I’m going to sleep now.

[Kakmakr]

Ok, if we are going to cherry pick statistics, then why not measure something that money cannot pay for.... "A total of 40 workers were killed in accidents in gold mines last year...." South Africa. - Source : https://city-press.news24.com/Business/gold-sector-still-leads-in-mine-deaths-20190301

People are worried about rubbish like this, but they forget how many lives has been lost in mining for precious metals and these lives cannot be replaced with any amount of money!

The waste water of these mines are killing loads of animals and plants and some people too, but that is nothing... right? So, is the electricity used for Bitcoin mining really that destructive or are they just looking for a stick to bash Bitcoin?   

[MonsterV]

Why do many people prefer to mine bitcoin? the answer is because not everyone can mine gold, maybe only people who have large companies and capital can mine gold.

But mining bitcoin is relatively easier, there are no complicated requirements to mine gold, there are no permits or that. We only need computers and VGA, this is very easy.

And another one of the reasons that makes people choose bitcoin is its potential, high volatility in the bitcoin market makes bitcoin go down and rise so fast. So that everyone thinks this bitcoin has a higher up potential.

[Lauren Smith]

Ok, if we are going to cherry pick statistics, then why not measure something that money cannot pay for.... "A total of 40 workers were killed in accidents in gold mines last year...." South Africa. - Source : https://city-press.news24.com/Business/gold-sector-still-leads-in-mine-deaths-20190301

People are worried about rubbish like this, but they forget how many lives has been lost in mining for precious metals and these lives cannot be replaced with any amount of money!

The waste water of these mines are killing loads of animals and plants and some people too, but that is nothing... right? So, is the electricity used for Bitcoin mining really that destructive or are they just looking for a stick to bash Bitcoin?   

Exactly. They only talk about how much energy is used but they don't talk about how it is produced. The energy produced for bitcoin mining us nowhere near as damaging as cutting down forests and destroying nature to make space for huge machines to excavate a dig up all the land leaving a huge landfill and destruction in their wake. It is dangerous as hell to mine and it must be scary too. People die all the time mining it's not even big thing it is to be expected.

[Kakmakr]

Ok, if we are going to cherry pick statistics, then why not measure something that money cannot pay for.... "A total of 40 workers were killed in accidents in gold mines last year...." South Africa. - Source : https://city-press.news24.com/Business/gold-sector-still-leads-in-mine-deaths-20190301

People are worried about rubbish like this, but they forget how many lives has been lost in mining for precious metals and these lives cannot be replaced with any amount of money!

The waste water of these mines are killing loads of animals and plants and some people too, but that is nothing... right? So, is the electricity used for Bitcoin mining really that destructive or are they just looking for a stick to bash Bitcoin?   

Exactly. They only talk about how much energy is used but they don't talk about how it is produced. The energy produced for bitcoin mining us nowhere near as damaging as cutting down forests and destroying nature to make space for huge machines to excavate a dig up all the land leaving a huge landfill and destruction in their wake. It is dangerous as hell to mine and it must be scary too. People die all the time mining it's not even big thing it is to be expected.

They do not mention it, because it does not suit their hidden agenda. The Goldbug forum is a very good example of this, because those people hate Bitcoin. <I frequently visit those forums to troll a bit and they get very agitated when you talk about Bitcoin and Crypto currencies there> 

We have not even touched the water pollution and water usage of these mining operations and the massive fans that are running 24/7 to provide air for the miners. They also run water pumps 24/7 to pump out all the ground water that collect in the shafts and also use a lot of water in the drilling process. 

[maydna]

I don't know how much cost to mine gold but I think it will easy to mine bitcoin than gold because we only need to have electricity and now we have so many options to get the electricity. We can use the other energy to get the electricity so we can start to mine bitcoin or another coin but yes we need to spend a lot of money to buy the hardware. But if we compare the gold price and the bitcoin price, I think people will choose to mine bitcoin than gold because they can see the price will increase in the future. That will be one factor for people to consider which will give them an easy way to mine and if they think that mine bitcoin will easy, then they will choose to mine bitcoin.

[ubay]

Honestly, mining bitcoin is much easier than mining gold. Because mining bitcoin can be done individually or in a company, but if mining gold needs a lot of processes such as legality from the country or important documents so you can mine gold. And the condition is very difficult if done if you do not have a super large capital.

[jademaxsuy]

You may have the point OP, but I think the right answer is depending on the market price movement. Usually higher bitcoin market price means higher bitcoin profit in mining. But, it does guarantee when bitcoin falls down. So, in this case it is good to mine gold than btc but not all the time.

[spacehopper]

But if the bitcoin prize rises you will have great profit.If the bitcoin prize fall below 5K,then the situation coming to when you have to pay more than you can earn. Electricity bills and other bills surely will force you to quit with no profit situation.

[fiulpro]

Well ;
     * You cannot find gold mines everywhere
     * You need to buy the land and get the rights to actually go and mine some gold
     * You need to then pay for the processing of that mined gold .
     * Then comes the fact if that mining was profitable or not , since someplace might just have a small amount
     * It also emmits a lot of pollution

Contrary ;
     * You can just mine Bitcoins sitting at home by buying some mining machine and that would certainly cost less that buying a land

    * You can use renewable sources of energy to equate with that electricity demand

[deisik]

Ok, if we are going to cherry pick statistics, then why not measure something that money cannot pay for.... "A total of 40 workers were killed in accidents in gold mines last year...." South Africa. - Source : https://city-press.news24.com/Business/gold-sector-still-leads-in-mine-deaths-20190301

People are worried about rubbish like this, but they forget how many lives has been lost in mining for precious metals and these lives cannot be replaced with any amount of money!

The waste water of these mines are killing loads of animals and plants and some people too, but that is nothing... right? So, is the electricity used for Bitcoin mining really that destructive or are they just looking for a stick to bash Bitcoin?   

Exactly. They only talk about how much energy is used but they don't talk about how it is produced. The energy produced for bitcoin mining us nowhere near as damaging as cutting down forests and destroying nature to make space for huge machines to excavate a dig up all the land leaving a huge landfill and destruction in their wake. It is dangerous as hell to mine and it must be scary too. People die all the time mining it's not even big thing it is to be expected.

They do not mention it, because it does not suit their hidden agenda. The Goldbug forum is a very good example of this, because those people hate Bitcoin

I used to visit those sites too in the past (Kitco, etc)

Though, honestly, I don't understand their hatred. Does Bitcoin steal value from gold? Unlikely, because these are two very different investment assets (in fact, sitting on the opposite ends of the investment yardstick). Gold is more for those who want to preserve the value of their wealth (gold bugs), while Bitcoin is for those who want to multiply it (via speculation or otherwise). It would be just plain stupid for a gold bug to hate Bitcoin other than for personal reasons (e.g., losing on a Bitcoin investment). If anything, they should be interested in Bitcoin as well as other cryptocurrencies simply because most gold bugs hate fiat. Personally, I like gold but it doesn't have to mean that I hate crypto