Bitcoin vs Precious Metals - the final verdict is in.

[Doan9269]

Gold is not going to make someone rich. How many people have you ever seen that say "investing in gold made me rich"? None!

Some have made it through their wealth life through gold, but we must not deny the fact that this is only a centralized physical asset, now that bitcoin arrives, it is targeted on everyone, bitcoin is never like gold which was centralized, bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency and anyone can make investment in it at any time and make profit without having to hold for long, a good example are the traders, you can also work and get paid in bitcoin, just as you have seen it being a digital currency unlike gold which is just an asset but but people were not paid in it.

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[hatshepsut93]

Gold is not going to make someone rich. How many people have you ever seen that say "investing in gold made me rich"? None!

There's investing for preserving the wealth, and there's investing for increasing the wealth. Gold is mostly for preserving and slow growing. Risky investments like stocks or Bitcoin are for "becoming rich". But you can't expect them to grow infinitely. Best case scenario is that Bitcoin will eventually become gold 2.0 and stop having these big bull and bear markets and will grow slowly and predictably. Worst case scenario is that Bitcoin crashes hard when investors that look for high returns move on to other things.

[Sophokles]

Both assets have the potential to store of value and gold has been used for a long time. Bitcoin is new compared to gold so it's not well-tested I can say but its performance is somehow better than gold. Investors who are not willing to take much risk wanted to invest in gold on the contrary bitcoin's performance attracted investors who wanted to get fast growth for their investment. 

[uchegod-21]

I've been doing a bit of research on this debate and come to a conclusion about which one is better and why.

if it was possible to just buy gold at spot price and sell it at spot price then maybe gold would be a viable way to make money but in the real world, you don't buy some 1 ounce gold coin at spot price. You pay what they call a "premium", a ripoff factor if you will. Apparently some gold coins have a very high premium like if you buy from the US Mint. They could be as high as 50% premium. And when you turn around to sell it to your local coin shop you'll be lucky to get spot price. So just to break even you need gold to go up at least 50% in that scenario.

Of course not every 1 ounce gold coin has such a high premium but they all have premiums. You might pay a 5% premium at your local coin shop. For a $2000 ounce of gold, that is $100 fee. And then when you go and sell maybe another $100 fee.

you're not making money with gold. the only people doing that are the ones buying and selling it at the coin shop.

Gold is not going to make someone rich. How many people have you ever seen that say "investing in gold made me rich"? None!

I see you are comparing bitcoin to precious metals base on their individual values. Both bitcoin and precious metals like gold are stores of value. Infact gold has over the decades proven to be a very good store of value. Even with the fact that bitcoin is highly volatile I will choose bitcoin over precious metals any day, anytime. Bitcoin is a multipurpose coin. While it stores your wealth,  you can still use a portion of it to buy candy from the grocery shop. This is one thing we cannot do with precious metals because bitcoin is highly divisible compared to precious metals.

[Trawda]

Personally, I do not see investing in gold as a good thing. Acquiring gold is good as a store of value and a hedge against inflation in the long term, but it is not profitable unless you store large quantities.

As for investing in Bitcoin, it is profitable on the one hand due to the rise in prices several times, and on the other hand it can be used as a store of value in the long term.

[Sim_card]

Bitcoin investment is more profitable and easy to store than gold. Gold has been their for a very long time and it has gained ground, that is everybody knows the name gold both old people and young people. In the bible gold has been in existence but bitcoin came yesterday and has already shown that in the nearest future its value might be triple that of gold, due to it's volatile nature. Bitcoin price ever since creation has been increasing rapidly compare to gold. I don't see gold as an investment, rather I see it as a store of value but bitcoin is both an investment and a store of value.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

IMO, I think that Bitcoin has more advantages than gold. For example, you can have up to 100 bitcoins stored in your wallet, and you can just carry them around. No one will really know what you have with you unless you tell people the volume of Bitcoin you have on you, but you can't carry about a troy ounce of gold that is worth millions of dollars. The person with such an amount of gold cannot sell it without revealing their identity and involving a third party. Although some people as invest in gold but they believe it can act as a hedge against devaluation no the Fiat money. 

[jossiel]

Precious metals have made a lot of people rich and if you can remember the gold rush, many from that time became rich so that was likely the peak CMIIW.

And during that time, the other people that have became rich were those who sold shovels. Luckily, we're in a different era where Bitcoin isn't yet on its peak.

It's just even starting out and compared to the shovels, there goes the miners (ASIC) and another good thing on this one, Bitcoin isn't just limited from those things.

It's actually money that we can use to pay people unlike gold, needs to be converted to cash first which is the same for Bitcoin. But if you're transacting with a person or a shop that accepts BTC, you do P2P.

And having Bitcoin, you can carry it on your mobile wallet unlike gold, it is tangible and it's hot in the eyes of people that sees it.

[larry_vw_1955]

Op you make it sound as if buying precious metal like gold or silver is a useless thing to do or a waste of money. And I don't understand why.

because the market is illiquid and there is alot of friction for someone to sell some of their gold, just a normal investor i mean. there is no one single spot price apparently get this:

each coin shop/dealer might set their own "spot price". what they do is take the real spot price and apply a markup to it then they impose a premium on top of that when you buy! what a scam! i even heard of people willingly paying over $200 for a single ounce of silver just because it was made by some particular mint but guess how much they can sell it for at the dealer? probably spot price. what a scam. paying 10 times the spot rate. just because.

Gold is only up 400% in 30 years, and performed a mediocre 40% in 10 years. Not sure if that amount of gains can necessarily make most people rich(definitely not), but it surely somewhat did protect people's wealth in those timespans.

the problem with that way of thinking is, hasn't inflation outpaced all of that in those same time periods? so maybe gold helped offset some devaluation of someone's networth but i don't think it necessarily outpaced inflation. food costs have risen just that much if not more. maybe someone would have been better off just buying that car or buying that house instead of sticking it into gold because maybe now their gold is not worth enough to afford those things.

example: ford trucks now cost over $100,000 in some cases if you get them fully loaded. that's called inflation big time. and your gold is only able to go up so much.  

Besides, if you say no one gets rich through gold, I don't think you're right.

i didn't say no one gets rich through gold. pawn shops, coin shops and mints they all are the ones making the money. retail investors i don't think they get rich. i think most of them actually lose money investing in precious metals. that's just how it is.

Because in my country, if you study gold mining seriously. There are many places where the soil or rocks contain gold. So if used well, the opportunity to gain profits will be very large.

most retail investors in the united states, i dont know where you're from, they just think of gold as something that comes from the local coin shop. and that's about it...they're too busy to even think about where it comes from beyond that. and even if they did, they are too busy to try and do it themself. and have better things to do. just the way it is. digging up gold out of the ground here in the usa people would think you were crazy.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

Gold is not going to make someone rich. How many people have you ever seen that say "investing in gold made me rich"? None!

Gold is a precious metal and precious metals aren't been invested into again as we did before to make profits but to secure profits. The price of gold isn't as volatile as the price of Bitcoin so the possibility of making high profits aren't there but you can be guaranteed that when you buy gold, your money will be secured for the future. Gold had its moments and it was during the Gold rush days that's when if you had invested in gold, you'll be making high profits but not today. Now we're in the Bitcoin rush days and if you want to make profits you have to buy Bitcoin. Investing in gold gives your investment stability since the price won't be volatile and your investment in gold gives you an edge against inflation.

As for investing in Bitcoin, it is profitable on the one hand due to the rise in prices several times, and on the other hand it can be used as a store of value in the long term.

This is why investing in Bitcoin is highly recommended because Bitcoin can give you high profits and still be used as a store of value. Bitcoin has more pros then cons compared to Gold. Gold is physical so it'll be more difficult to move or transferred around but Bitcoin is digital and requires little to no effort to move around. Bitcoin is easier to invest into as it's decentralization and can be done from the comfort of any place but gold can't unless you want to buy just shares of Gold and not the real Gold. Bitcoin doesn't only give your security of the wealth but profits in a short time, Bitcoin has been outperforming gold since its introduction to the market as well.

[Lucius]

~snip~
Gold is not going to make someone rich. How many people have you ever seen that say "investing in gold made me rich"? None!

Maybe no one will get rich trading gold in the way you described, but there are people who make huge profits from gold, and I am primarily referring to gold mining companies. There are also ordinary people who search for gold with metal detectors in their spare time, and there are some TV shows where their adventures are followed, and I remember that some of them get lucky and find a really big nugget of gold.

Bitcoin is something completely different, and its volatility (in the short term), and especially in the long term, is incomparable when it comes to possible profit. In addition, we live in a digital world, and new generations have less and less interest in precious metals.

[kryptqnick]

I think investing in gold and expecting to make profit only makes sense if a person already has tons of money, so even a small amount of growth can lead to a lot in terms of profits. But in that case, you should probably stop focusing on profits and start thinking about making an impact with the wealth you already have. Or a person might also simply keep some wealth in gold because of believing that it's safer than fiat (which it is because fiat is losing value over time).
As for Bitcoin, it's an easier thing to buy, a safer thing to buy (no need to worry about overpaying or about falsifications), but it can be way less stable than gold, and a bear market might catch a person off-guard.

[Ucy]

Ofcourse, it became difficult for gold, mainly due to the way the supply is centralized. If most people were self-custodying it, demand will be high during certain times and the centralized custodians wouldn't have enough to manipulate the price. It's just like Bitcoin which tended to be manipulated when much of the supply was increasingly controlled by few people. But it became difficult and unattractive for them when people start self-custodying more and when what determines the price was changed so that even if they control much of the supply, they couldn't influence the price dishonestly.  Other positive factors were used to help check negative centralized price control.

[Honyek]

Considering my past knowledge and understanding of the precious metals, l don't think investing in them will give one a desirable profit. They are  unstable and
 also not dependable. In addition, it will take a good amount of money to make a reasonable investment, which might eventually turn out  to be lose. l prefer bitcoin that requires a little amount to make an investment, and if one watches carefully, it will bring about gain, and even more, depending on the time and situation.  

[jeha2015]

Both assets have the potential to store of value and gold has been used for a long time. Bitcoin is new compared to gold so it's not well-tested I can say but its performance is somehow better than gold. Investors who are not willing to take much risk wanted to invest in gold on the contrary bitcoin's performance attracted investors who wanted to get fast growth for their investment. 

Both are good for saving money to avoid inflation. However, if you look at history, many ordinary people prefer gold, but if they look at the profits they will definitely choose Bitcoin as their future asset. What is clear if we look at history is that we have been deceived by fiat money.

the key is diversification. I invest in precious metals and Bitcoin. Most importantly, don't put all your eggs in one basket because that will minimize our risks in the future.

[Sophokles]

Both assets have the potential to store of value and gold has been used for a long time. Bitcoin is new compared to gold so it's not well-tested I can say but its performance is somehow better than gold. Investors who are not willing to take much risk wanted to invest in gold on the contrary bitcoin's performance attracted investors who wanted to get fast growth for their investment. 

Both are good for saving money to avoid inflation. However, if you look at history, many ordinary people prefer gold, but if they look at the profits they will definitely choose Bitcoin as their future asset. What is clear if we look at history is that we have been deceived by fiat money.

the key is diversification. I invest in precious metals and Bitcoin. Most importantly, don't put all your eggs in one basket because that will minimize our risks in the future.

My assumption is that you have a basic understanding of finance. You are right diversification is the key and we shouldn't be overconfident about bitcoin. We know it is a great asset to fight inflation but its risk is great compared to other assets. Because of this some investors might want to avoid it and save their money mostly on gold and other precious metals. Bitcoin's historical growth is promising but nothing is guaranteed that it will perform like the previous one The probability is high.

[BitDane]

Gold is not going to make someone rich. How many people have you ever seen that say "investing in gold made me rich"? None!

the same can be said for bitcoin no?, Don't get me wrong i like bitcoin a lot.

I agree, Bitcoin will not make anyone rich if they don't invest huge amount of money.  Gone are the days when Bitcoin investments can be multiplied by 100x in just some years.  If we want to have such kind of profit I believe we need to wait for many decades.

But it is demonstrated that bitcoin has a better store of value than gold at least in the last 10 years no?

Spot on because Bitcoin is in the green in range from its time entering the market and today, but Bitcoin is not a good store of value for those who entered during the peak of 2021 market price since it  losses a lot of its value at the current time. Being highly volatile makes Bitcoin inferior to precious metal in terms of store of value, IMO.

[GbitG]

Both are unique and valuable things, whether it is bitcoin or precious metal. Both have their own merits in their place. But if I were to personally pick and choose between the two, it would be bitcoin because it is the most valuable and secure tangible thing compared to gold. Due to its volatile nature, bitcoin also has the ability to gain a quick profit. Yes, it is true that, due to its volatile nature, it is equally possible to lose, but it depends on you how you adopt strategy. On the other hand, gold has a steady and calm nature, which means there is no high volatility in the price. And the most prominent and admirable thing because of which I like Bitcoin is security, which means if we compare Bitcoin and gold, you will get extra care and security in gold. While Bitcoin connects you to the decentralized world and gives you the allowance of a free-hand peer-to-peer network deal or transaction, And instead of extra security, it provides the facility of a more secure blockchain.

These are the reasons why I and many of my members like bitcoin over gold.

[sportstoto88]

Personally, I think investments are different for each person and generation. Do you think investing in Bitcoin is a reasonable method now? It is still old, and people who invest in gold say that gold is the best. The reason is...it's still going up...of course, considering Bitcoin's volatility and investment value...I think Bitcoin is the best...but risks coexist...it's really difficult. ..I personally vote for Bitcoin.
I work at a sport betting company, and I think the current trend is charging the betting amount with virtual currency and making bets. This will all change soon.

[Marvell1]

Gold is not going to make someone rich. How many people have you ever seen that say "investing in gold made me rich"? None!

Some have made it through their wealth life through gold, but we must not deny the fact that this is only a centralized physical asset, now that bitcoin arrives, it is targeted on everyone, bitcoin is never like gold which was centralized, bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency and anyone can make investment in it at any time and make profit without having to hold for long, a good example are the traders, you can also work and get paid in bitcoin, just as you have seen it being a digital currency unlike gold which is just an asset but but people were not paid in it.

I don't think gold is completely centralized because it is scattered across the entire surface of our earth and only those who can discover and mine it can own it, no government can create it like fiat. But no one knows how much gold our earth has, there may be a lot of gold that we humans have not discovered yet.

Talking about how to make money from gold, we also have a forex market and you can also profit from trading the XAU/USD pair. It can generate even greater profits when compared to the BTC/USD trading pair. But holding physical gold will not have the same potential as holding bitcoin. Simply because gold has achieved its achievements and reached its limit while bitcoin still has a lot of potential thanks to its outstanding properties.