Why do many people call Bitcoin "digital gold"?

[kawetsriyanto]

it is not wrong if people refer to Bitcoin as digital gold because of its value.

I can agree with you. Bitcoin value is always very fluctuating, this cannot be compared with gold. We know that Gold value has more stability than Bitcoin, but I don't say it has no fluctuation. The fundamental difference between Bitcoin and Gold is on the possibility of the value change shortly. Gold looks a bit stable, while Bitcoin can change its value very significantly in a short time.

Bitcoin thrives during “risk-on” conditions, while gold prefers “risk-off”

Does it mean Gold has no risk?
I don't think so. Gold value can decrease, too.
But if you look at the price history, the change is not very significant as Bitcoin value.

[mk4]

This is backed up by the evidence we have from how popular Casascius conis were, and all the other variations which were released after. People just love to hold a physical item, and I'm not sure what the psychology is behind that, but there's definitely a reason for it. Casascius identified this early, and made major profits during the time they were selling the coins.

However, despite us wanting to hold a physical item, modern times are changing quite quickly, most people are becoming accustomed to handling their finances online, where as 5-10 years ago, most people thought of it as insecure.  So, while at the moment people like shiny physical things, it is quickly changing. Several challenging banks are now operating entirely online, and don't even have any local branches that you can go too. Bitcoin will most certainly benefit from this psychological shift in our culture.

With almost everything going digital, my opinion is that it's mostly because you can see and feel it outside your/phone computer, which makes it more sort of "real". But then again, I think this will easily change in the next generation, because today's kids and teenagers are just so accustomed to digital everything due to video game skins and such.

[Darker45]

1)Bitcoin, like gold, has a limited total amount and is scarce, and neither can be supplied infinitely. At the same time, it is very difficult to obtain, and it requires cost.
2)Bitcoin and gold have similar physical properties, and both have the uniqueness of matter. Can not be tampered with, can not be copied, can be physically divided.
3)Both Bitcoin and gold have similar monetary properties and can be used for daily payments or as a store of value.

1. The difference between Bitcoin and gold, however, in terms of scarcity is that Bitcoin's 21 million is hard-coded while gold's is questionable. Perhaps it's just a matter of time before gold is to be obtained outside of earth.

2. What do you mean by "similar physical properties?" Does Bitcoin, which is not physical, have physical properties? Could Bitcoin be physically divided? Gold could be tampered, could be copied or faked to a certain extent, and physically dividing gold properly requires expertise unlike Bitcoin's breaking down into Sats.

3. I don't think Bitcoin and gold have similar monetary properties. And is there still a place where gold is still accepted as daily payments?

[NeverSop]

In a digital age that plays a major role in the economy and society, bitcoin has emerged with popularity, accompanied by increasing demand, decentralization, and a low fixed supply. The bigger problem is that bitcoin mining is getting more and more difficult. This means that bitcoin becomes scarcer, rarer and more valuable than gold. It's a figurative term for bitcoin.

[vania vin]

In my opinion bitcoin and gold are equally important, they can be stored in the long term but for now the price of bitcoin tends to change quickly compared to gold to seek better profits, choose bitcoin but remember the risk that must be borne is also large.

[andeluna]

in my opinion some people called it digital gold is because of its value and usage. Value by means that this is the only crypto currency that can be use to buy stuffs and the whole world already know it and use it as common digital currency. Also we can get btc by mining the same like mining gold thats why I think the reason why some of the people called it digital gold.

[ethereumhunter]

I would make it a simple thing as gold is available in real life while bitcoin is available on the internet. People can touch gold because gold has a form, while people can only see bitcoin in the wallet using many devices such as computers, mobile phones, or else. Without the internet, people can not use bitcoin, but gold can use with the internet. So bitcoin can be the digital gold that is only available using the internet.

[Obito]

in my opinion some people called it digital gold is because of its value and usage. Value by means that this is the only crypto currency that can be use to buy stuffs and the whole world already know it and use it as common digital currency. Also we can get btc by mining the same like mining gold thats why I think the reason why some of the people called it digital gold.

This is wrong in my opinion, value just because it can be used to buy stuff can be done by other currencies too you know so I don't think that it's the only reason for the value, I think the utility that bitcoin has is comparable to gold with it's code being able to be used by others to create their own coin.

[ropyu1978]

people say bitcoin is gold in digital, most likely it can be accepted by our common sense, because we can see bitcoin is now at its peak, it can be said that for now no one can match bitcoin, bitcoin can also be used as an asset that very valuable. that's why many say bitcoin as gold in gital..

[taufik0911]

I think why bitcoin is called digital gold because bitcoin has some similarities with gold, how to get it through digital mining
in essence bitcoin is almost the same as gold, not printed arbitrarily like fiat and it is very promising for the next few years and in my opinion bitcoin will become a safe haven later

[BlackHatCoiner]

People call it “digital gold” due to its properties. It is divisible, highly difficult for an average person to extract it from “the ground”, storing value etc. Generally, it is referred as digital gold, because it really isn't owned by anyone, but everyone has the same rights.

Here's a nice quote from Satoshi:

As a thought experiment, imagine there was a base metal as scarce as gold but with the following properties:
- boring grey in colour
- not a good conductor of electricity
- not particularly strong, but not ductile or easily malleable either
- not useful for any practical or ornamental purpose

and one special, magical property:
- can be transported over a communications channel

If it somehow acquired any value at all for whatever reason, then anyone wanting to transfer wealth over a long distance could buy some, transmit it, and have the recipient sell it.

Maybe it could get an initial value circularly as you've suggested, by people foreseeing its potential usefulness for exchange.  (I would definitely want some)  Maybe collectors, any random reason could spark it.

I think the traditional qualifications for money were written with the assumption that there are so many competing objects in the world that are scarce, an object with the automatic bootstrap of intrinsic value will surely win out over those without intrinsic value.  But if there were nothing in the world with intrinsic value that could be used as money, only scarce but no intrinsic value, I think people would still take up something.

(I'm using the word scarce here to only mean limited potential supply)

in 2009 the first block reward was not 50btc.
it was 5000000000sats. and every 4 years that reward number halves

It was 50 BTC. The fact that this unit doesn't exist in the source code doesn't mean that we can't name it. There are just ways to measure it. In gold, you can use grams, ounces, tones etc. They're all correct.

[mk4]

In my opinion bitcoin and gold are equally important, they can be stored in the long term but for now the price of bitcoin tends to change quickly compared to gold to seek better profits, choose bitcoin but remember the risk that must be borne is also large.

Something being "important" is subjective. It's just the matter of who we're asking. When we're talking about goldsmiths and central banks, then gold would be the answer. When we're talking about people in countries with slowly-but-surely dying currencies, then bitcoin would most likely be the answer.

[mbe48]

I think many people call Bitcoin “digital gold” because of its good reputation. Gold has been known as a precious metal, while Bitcoin is known as the king of crypto assets. Although Bitcoin and Gold are similar but the main difference between the two lies in their growth environment. Bitcoin thrives during “risk-on” conditions, while gold prefers “risk-off”. Risk-on occurs when the economy grows, bond yields increase (and thus bond prices fall). On the other hand, gold thrives when real interest rates, i.e. bond yields minus inflation expectations, continue to decline. Please correct me if my opinion is different from yours.

[Reatim]

in my opinion BTC is called digital gold because it has a position and is at the top of the virtual currency market, but if talking about higher value I think diamond, I also have a question. is why BTC is not likened to diamond but gold, do you think like me?.

For me personally , i consider Bitcoin as Digital gold because of the Hardship in Mining each coin , for all those years more than 11 specifically yet 21 million coins still on process of Mining that is why it has been called as GOLD.
and also people are threating the coins valuable as how they handle their Gold.
in terms of Hiding it in most secure place they can be.
So basically this is really a digital gold.

[franky1]

in 2009 the first block reward was not 50btc.
it was 5000000000sats. and every 4 years that reward number halves

It was 50 BTC. The fact that this unit doesn't exist in the source code doesn't mean that we can't name it. There are just ways to measure it. In gold, you can use grams, ounces, tones etc. They're all correct.

average joe doesnt buy whole btc anymore.. so the basket term is less applicable
yes i have many whole btc but even i measure things in bits and sats

..
its like 'boxes of apples'
do people actually care about the box.. or the apples inside
the box (basket term) is not the value in of itself.

yes a container ship box might be $30k
but people only want to buy single apples of $3 bags

world traders might only have 10,000 containerships of apples on their trading exchange suite. but its not actually the container thats the value. its the apples inside

scarcity of apples is not about the box amount. its about the number of apples that can be shared. no matter if they are in boxes or separate

gold was scarce when the smallest shareable size was like a necklace or a coin (multiple grams)

but now gold is everywhere. your device you read this post on now has milligrams of gold in it
everyone on this forum has milligrams of gold.
gold is no longer scarce.. its right now right there within 3 feet of your eyes


..
its like this
"due to the limit of boating lanes and cargo ships.. there can only ever be 21,000,000 containers of apples"
but reality is people care about how many apples people can eat/consume/share not the apples

so if they GM an apple to be 10x smaller to fit 10x more apples in.
more people can get apples. thus apples. the real value. is 10x less scarce

you will soon learn this when exchanges start measuring market orders in bits or millibits.
the un-importance of btc becomes apparent

,,
if still unsure about scarcity and supply..
if you still think its ok to break the blockchain unit of measure(sat) and have 1000x more divisions

well if you take these two pictures


and still think the supply is still the same
'cos its about them both being the same "one handfull"'
you really dont understand shares. scarcity, supply

[lablab03]

Even before a lot of people saying bitcoin is a digital gold. Not because of its color, but because of the value that keep shining but government still don't want to use it as a legal tender and etc.. That's what happened to gold as well when someone stopped to the people to convert gold way back 1970's because of some issues . Which is happening in bitcoin right now even the price is too expensive. For me there's no big difference between bitcoin and gold because both of them can't replace real fiats even they become more valuable in the future..

[XavierLaurent]

Don't forget about advantages of gold. It can be accepted in any country in the world. I don't think there are laws prohibiting it's use anywhere in the world. You can store gold physically and indefinitely, whereas hard drives can degrade over time or become obsolete in a few years.
Possibily of gold being hacked and stolen is practically 0. With BTC it's higher amount for sure. Everyone understands how shiny metal thing works, but BTC is more complicated to newcomers.

Still tho, out of all cryptos BTC is the most akin to gold due to it's high cost, finite amount, scarcity, popularity and uses as investment funding.

[randegibran]

nowadays.almost most.people call bitcoin almost similar to gold, especially in.the storage process.virtually this.is very close to having a similar or similar resemblance.but for those who are not investors.they are more likely.to save their money into gold at the appropriate price at the moment.people will sell.it back when they need money

[Sirait]

It makes it easier for them to understand what bitcoin is. It is unlikely that they know about stablecoins backed by gold.

right, the mention of Bitcoin is a digital gold to make it easier to explain Bitcoin to ordinary people. many people do not understand what Bitcoin is and is Bitcoin safe then it makes the parable of Bitcoin is digital gold will definitely make it easier for them to understand a little bit about Bitcoin.

[mk4]

right, the mention of Bitcoin is a digital gold to make it easier to explain Bitcoin to ordinary people. many people do not understand what Bitcoin is and is Bitcoin safe then it makes the parable of Bitcoin is digital gold will definitely make it easier for them to understand a little bit about Bitcoin.

I disagree slightly. I don't think most people even know the monetary uses of gold, other than it's shiny and it looks good for bracelets, rings, and necklaces. So when you say digital gold, it would make zero sense to most people because you can't physically see nor touch bitcoin.