Positive consequences if Bitcoin replaces gold as a reserve asset

[d5000]

I've recently thought a bit about a scenario where Bitcoin replaces different kinds of assets. This is often discussed as part of the "Total Addressable Market" (TAM) approach.

I think it could have positive consequences if Bitcoin replaced gold as the leading reserve asset, mainly for companies, but also for central banks maybe (even if I have also some problems with that)..

First, Gold is almost 100% improductive. In contrast to stocks: if you buy stocks you help the company behind them to satisfy the needs of people.

Bitcoin, instead, can be considered at least a bit productive: it has some advantages that benefit the economy if it is widely used, like eliminating some friction, above all in international commerce. It also could remove intermediaries which are of a "parasite" character in my opinion, like credit card companies which artificially inflate the prices of many goods due to the merchant fees. And it also encourages innovation in the crypto sector, while the effect of gold-driven innovation in mining for example should be much smaller.

Second, a high gold valuation instead even harms some companies, mostly those who require it as an input (material) for their own production, above all in electronics. If gold crashed back to its "industrial" value (less than 10% from now), then several goods could be (a bit) cheaper.

And third of course there's the ecological benefit if there was less gold mining. Skeptics could say this would be compensated by Bitcoin's energy use, but in theory Bitcoin can run on 100% renewable energy. Mining gold instead always produces ecological harm.

I suspect these effects are quite small, but they could be significant enough to have a positive effect on the global economy.

What do people think? Is this true, false or is the effect too small to be relevant? Are there other possible (and also negative) effects I forgot?


PS: In contrast I think it could have negative effects if too money flows from the stock market to Bitcoin, because that would increase capital cost for businesses. But for gold, I think the effect should be positive.

[Antidote47k]

I agree with the general direction of this, I can potentially see benefits like the reduced need for the extraction of gold and storing gold for monetary purposes.
An interesting thought is that gold’s lack of productive yield is also one of the reasons that makes it useful as a reserve asset. It doesn’t depend on any company, government or a particular network continuing to function which makes it very unique. Bitcoin also share some of that monetary independence, but a different set of requirements around keys connectivity and bitcoin network replaces gold’s physical infrastructure.

If bitcoin eventually does displace a significant portion of golds monetary demand, then I also wonder what the second order effect on gold would be like. Lower monetary demand could make it cheaper for industrial uses but also make some mining uneconomical and reduce future supply.

[tiCeR]

This is probably a topic as complex as it could get.

First, Gold is almost 100% improductive. In contrast to stocks: if you buy stocks you help the company behind them to satisfy the needs of people.

I think this statement mixes up "productive" and "useful". In this sense Antidote47k is right that gold has some very similar properties that make it useful, first and foremost that it is independent from any specific entity to continue to exist and "provide services" as it does now. Bitcoin has a number of advantages like mobility, divisibility, transparency and accountability, several more. You would need costly frequent audits for big companies or central banks to prove that they own the gold they claim to own.

I still think it will take a very long time for large institutions to get rid of old school thinking. My grandma would prefer a gold bar over a similar amount of bitcoin just because of this skepticism towards technology. This doesn't mean it makes sense, but a lot of people and entities feel safer storing their assets in physical form. It doesn't count for me or you, but it counts for a lot of others.

A central bank might be nonstop paranoid about getting hacked or infiltrated if they owned an enormous amount of bitcoin because it is less likely that they get raided with a parade of trucks stealing gold bars from their basements.

And third of course there's the ecological benefit if there was less gold mining. Skeptics could say this would be compensated by Bitcoin's energy use, but in theory Bitcoin can run on 100% renewable energy. Mining gold instead always produces ecological harm.

Mining is a damn dirty business. Artisanal gold mining is horrible and yet I see a lot of hypocrisy when people talk about this topic and frankly, I can't claim I wouldn't buy some gold jewelry for the wife because I immediately think about the people mining it. Antidote47k mentioned second order effects and this is where I think it becomes complex. If the gold price were to go down, not only mining would go down, but recycling would go down. Now what happens to artisanal gold mining when the margins drop? I don't know, but the more I think about it, it may harm the people and artisanal mining would go up as they use basic tools, low fixed costs and often dramatically low labour cost. While some parts of nature may be better off because heavy machinery gets shut down, the poorest of the poor may get even more exploited.

High technology extraction companies probably have far stricter margin calculations and rules that tell them what to do at what price and after which time. Since they have to deal with higher risks for sunk capital and their ability to scale down is limited, it could theoretically mean that the artisanal mining sector expands and that would not be a good end result in my opinion.

This would need so much calculation and estimation to come up with a more sophisticated idea, but a good thought experiment for sure.

[viljy]

~
First, Gold is almost 100% improductive. In contrast to stocks: if you buy stocks you help the company behind them to satisfy the needs of people.
~

Well, I can also present some arguments that contradict these claims. For example. Gold is a raw material, for example, for the jewelry industry. Consequently, gold creates highly skilled jobs (jewelers). In jewelry, a high share of the value is generated by the labor of jewelers. Accordingly, the jewelry industry contributes to economic growth, as it creates a high share of added value in jewelry.

But, for example, buying or selling stocks does not create any added value in the economy, it merely redistributes it speculatively. Gold also creates jobs in the mining industry. And also in the production of electronics. Where does Bitcoin create jobs? Exclusively in the financial sector, that is, where surplus value is not created. So, roughly speaking, Bitcoin cannot contribute to the growth of real GDP, while gold can. And so one can argue endlessly, inventing the shortcomings of gold and the advantages of Bitcoin, or vice versa.

What matters is that gold is a "physical commodity", and therefore it can participate (as raw material) in the creation of other goods, which means it can create surplus value and thereby contribute to economic growth. Bitcoin is a "financial commodity" and can, figuratively speaking, participate in the creation of a financial product (generally speaking, some kind of derivative) and in financial circulation. None of this creates surplus value. Capitalism does not grow from the "mixing" of money and financial commodities. Capitalism grows only by creating surplus value (I’m not mentioning here such a crucial element as effective demand, as it is not relevant to this topic).

[pooya87]

The only thing I disagree with here is the word "replace".

Just like regular investors, when we are talking about reserves the governments and their central banks should also diversify instead of just having one asset in their vaults. Gold is still a solid thing to hold, the world trust it and it has a strong intrinsic value. Giving it up (replacing it) is wrong in my opinion.
Instead, other assets must be added to the reserves. Bitcoin is an excellent choice for that matter.

Adding bitcoin (instead of going full bitcoin) helps grow the reserves slowly too. It helps the adoption and help with things like "encourages innovation in the crypto sector" that OP mentioned. Otherwise if they just jump in and buy up a lot of bitcoin, it won't do any of that. It would just shoot the price up and create a shortage in the market killing bitcoin as money and turning it into an asset only.

[Zlantann]

First, Gold is almost 100% improductive. In contrast to stocks: if you buy stocks you help the company behind them to satisfy the needs of people.

Bitcoin, instead, can be considered at least a bit productive: it has some advantages that benefit the economy if it is widely used, like eliminating some friction, above all in international commerce. It also could remove intermediaries which are of a "parasite" character in my opinion, like credit card companies which artificially inflate the prices of many goods due to the merchant fees. And it also encourages innovation in the crypto sector, while the effect of gold-driven innovation in mining for example should be much smaller.

These intermediaries contribute to the economy by paying taxes and employing citizens. If Bitcoin displaces these financial middlemen, government revenue through licensing and tax, it will reduce and it might cause unemployment.

Second, a high gold valuation instead even harms some companies, mostly those who require it as an input (material) for their own production, above all in electronics. If gold crashed back to its "industrial" value (less than 10% from now), then several goods could be (a bit) cheaper.

Some countries, organisations and individuals have gold reserves. If the price of gold crashes, many of them will suffer great financial losses. The price of gold needs to remain high for the financial stability of some countries. The US, China, and others have large gold reserves, and they will not support Bitcoin to replace gold.

And third of course there's the ecological benefit if there was less gold mining. Skeptics could say this would be compensated by Bitcoin's energy use, but in theory Bitcoin can run on 100% renewable energy. Mining gold instead always produces ecological harm.

I support this one because it is happening in my country. So many agricultural lands have been destroyed because of legal and illegal gold mining. Bitcoin mining is environment freindly than gold production.

[Haunebu]

Firstly, I don't think BTC or any other crypto for that matter will ever replace gold as a global reserve asset at any point of time thanks to the majority preferring it over any other currency and due to the fact that BTC is highly volatile which could screw over nations instantly.

Secondly, as some posters above already pointed out, BTC could coexist with gold as an alternate digital global reserve asset which is far more realistic in the grand scheme of things.

[Gozie51]

IMO, bitcoin is still limited in use and trust compared to Gold that has existed thousand years ago with no limited jurisdictional barrier across different governments and its establishment, mining industry and companies. Gold has the support of government and that has given credence to its market cap around $28/$30 trillion because of the activities going on around gold. To me Gold is the Old world order in in asset evaluation, mining, manufacturing which has not failed spanning over thousand (s) years ago while bitcoin is barely 16/17 years in existence with far less in market cap. Countries (like El Salvador) have tried to adopt it but yet to fully move it in, into proper use as legal tender because of the high volatility rate compared to Gold, which can be regulated and controlled by government through CBN. Bitcoin is the new world order for asset evaluation but yet to gain stability. It can well be defined as digital gold but Gold remains accessible whether on the internet and with or without internet connection, that is also part of the limitations of bitcoin to replace Gold as a reserve asset. I may not doubt if 50% of the countries in the world has an amount of Gold reserve but same can't be adduce to bitcoin.

There is a research going on already here that I found out in favour of gold

[stompix]

Are there other possible (and also negative) effects I forgot?

Yup!
Let's see if Hollywood decides to make a movie about someone stealing the Federal Reserve
- Option A, two guys dig for months, rent trucks and diggers, carry dirt, make a 1-mile tunnel, gas the guards, spend hours carrying all the gold , flee in a truck, police chase, shooting, jumping over a bridge in fire ..all the stuff
- Option B, nerd in coffee shop sends malware links to all the guys from the fed that have profiles on LinkedIn

Assume you're a world power and the employee in charge mistakes the zero when moving one batch, and it ends up as a mining fee..

[Nathrixxx]

With how fast bitcoin is going, we seem to be attaining the stage of seeing bitcoin as a full replacement to gold as a reserved asset, this is only what we needed to see the government approved after they are done with declarity act, the people have already given their own tape on bitcoin and this is why the adoption rate could go this far, more endorsement from government recognition over the use of Bitcoin is what needed to circulate and people should also have the confidence in what the government has approved over the use of this data currency, but either with their support or not, bitcoin story remain unstoppable to achieve any of it targets.

[Localhostspeed]

Firstly, I don't think BTC or any other crypto for that matter will ever replace gold as a global reserve asset at any point of time thanks to the majority preferring it over any other currency and due to the fact that BTC is highly volatile which could screw over nations instantly.

Secondly, as some posters above already pointed out, BTC could coexist with gold as an alternate digital global reserve asset which is far more realistic in the grand scheme of things.

If the government see potential in something, they don't run to that place except if it's something they control but here is the thing about Bitcoin, it's not something they control and they don't like to invest into something they can't control. If one day Bitcoin replace Gold, they are going to put money on Bitcoin but will not replace it with a reserve that is agreed to a generational asset, they are not going to do that for anyone not mentioned Gold is controlled by government.

Look around Bitcoin supply and where it is concentrated, the government hold a small share, they don't control the coins in the supply and that is where there is going to be problem with them. I am going to believe the government is going to be so interested in Bitcoin if they are the one buying Bitcoin all day to buy Bitcoin but they are not, it's institutions that have large share of circulating supply.

[Coyster]

What do people think? Is this true, false or is the effect too small to be relevant? Are there other possible (and also negative) effects I forgot?

Your points are true, but not worth enough as to replace gold as a global reserve asset, the pros of Gold far outweighs whatever you've pointed out here. And let's not lie to ourselves that things can only be positive with bitcoin, because there are risks and disadvantages in any asset.

Gold is a safe haven asset and that is enough for any company or country to adopt it as their reserve asset and that is why most of them do so. Bitcoin is very volatile and requires more responsibility to store it safely, and we both know institutional investors and states wouldn't keep their coins in non-custodial wallets, but in custodial accounts, which comes with its own risks.

Gold ticks all the boxes for what a reserve asset should be, and bitcoin should only be adopted alongside it.

[ruykeri]

Neither bitcoin nor gold are productive assets from which cashflow will be generated regularly. Here my special focus is on which is better as a monetary asset. And for me, bitcoin will be ahead of gold in many ways. The positive side of gold is that it has maintained its value for a long time and most people trust gold. But due to the fixed supply of bitcoin, the popularity of bitcoin is also increasing. And if we talk about the environmental point, it is true that bitcoin can run on 100% renewable energy, but I have some doubts about how much renewable energy is used for mining now. But in the case of gold mining, it has an impact on the entire environment. Physical extraction has to be done for mining. And after a long time, the supply of bitcoin starts decreasing. Due to an increase in demand, the price of bitcoin is seen to be much higher. This is why even though the price of bitcoin is unstable, bitcoin will be more popular than gold in the future and it can be used as a reserve.

[d5000]

I think this statement mixes up "productive" and "useful". In this sense Antidote47k is right that gold has some very similar properties that make it useful, first and foremost that it is independent from any specific entity to continue to exist and "provide services" as it does now.

The essence of "productive" for me is the effect on the rest of the economy. "Usefulness" as a store of value is another story.

First let's look at "productivity". What would happen if Central Banks and private treasuries sell all their gold and it crashes 90% or more? You already said it: the mining sector could change. But gold's importance as a "store of value" is much higher than the share of the economy that is directly affected by gold, and I've already mentioned that a lower gold price would also lower the cost of the industries that need gold as an input. So the only direct negative impact of a very low gold price on the economy may be on mining and financial sectors (in the financial sectors, only those entities significantly involved with gold storage which could not replace gold activities with Bitcoin activities), and thus be very low overall. This means that gold directly doesn't contribute much to the economy.

Regarding the "usefulness", the problem is that it depends all on its valuation. If Gold was worth less it would be also less useful. I see the gold industry very much as a circular process, a virtuous cycle based on tradition. If this cycle is broken, then it could collapse entirely. If gold crashes 95%, would your grandma still consider it a good investment? (Maybe if she's a contrarian ... ). This problem is shared a bit with Bitcoin.

If the gold price were to go down, not only mining would go down, but recycling would go down. Now what happens to artisanal gold mining when the margins drop? I don't know, but the more I think about it, it may harm the people and artisanal mining would go up as they use basic tools, low fixed costs and often dramatically low labour cost. While some parts of nature may be better off because heavy machinery gets shut down, the poorest of the poor may get even more exploited.

I personally think if gold crashes 90-99% "back to its industrial usage price" then artisanal mining would also go down a lot. Artisanal mining only makes sense if gold is an essentially higher valued good than other materials. There are also studies that show that when the gold price increases, artisanal mining also increases, see this article (artisanal gold production doubled in the gold bull market of 2002-2010). It's imo more likely that a lot of industrial gold mines would shut down, with about 10% remaining - but these 10% would be the most efficient of the market.

Regarding recycling, according to my Google search it seems to be significantly cheaper than mining (about factor 5). I think thus this sector would be less affected than mining in this case.

For example. Gold is a raw material, for example, for the jewelry industry. Consequently, gold creates highly skilled jobs (jewelers).

I would argue that jewelry could be less affected by a "replacement of gold by Bitcoin" with subsequent gold crash. While gold jewelry is also a store of value, it has also "physical" qualities which will generate a lot of demand even in the case of a 90%+ gold price crash. The only problem I can imagine is that it could be temporary hit by panic sales of people who use jewelry as a store of value, but then it could stabilize. Perhaps on a slightly lower level than before, but I think the major impact of a "gold price collapse" would be on financial services like gold bar storage.

But, for example, buying or selling stocks does not create any added value in the economy, it merely redistributes it speculatively.

Stocks are one of the main ways for companies to grow. That's what I meant with "productive". "Selling" stocks of course is not productive, but the amount of capital in the stock market, in our current economic system, is a good indicator for the capital cost. If people invested less in stocks, it would be more costly for companies to grow, and we would have less innovation.

Regarding mining industry (which would be affected) and electronics (which would not be affected at all by a gold market collapse), see my answer to @tiCer.

Where does Bitcoin create jobs? Exclusively in the financial sector, that is, where surplus value is not created. So, roughly speaking, Bitcoin cannot contribute to the growth of real GDP, while gold can.

The surplus value from Bitcoin comes from the efficiency as a tool to transfer value. And this affects all companies which transfer value.

Take international trade: if using Bitcoin for transfers costs less than SWIFT, then all companies active in international trade would be benefitted by using Bitcoin. Or another example: online payments. Merchants have to pay a significant amount of fees to credit card companies. If instead Bitcoin (e.g. via Lightning or Ark) would be massively used, this would reduce the fees. (Regarding the relevancy of intermediaries, see below).

There's a catch: all these use cases depend on a lower BTC volatility, but in the scenario I describe this would be the case.

What matters is that gold is a "physical commodity", and therefore it can participate (as raw material) in the creation of other goods, which means it can create surplus value and thereby contribute to economic growth.

Again, if the price of gold collapses because it is not longer used as store of value, its industrial uses would remain, so no jobs/industries would be lost there (only in mining and financial services).

These intermediaries contribute to the economy by paying taxes and employing citizens. If Bitcoin displaces these financial middlemen, government revenue through licensing and tax, it will reduce and it might cause unemployment.

Here what we have to look at is: we have to compare potential efficiency gains by cutting out the intermediaries, which has an effect on the whole economy (i.e. costs for financial transactions decrease, and inflation goes down) and the impact of the loss of these industries.

I've not analyzed it in detail (if you want you can), but if all major credit card businesses employ less than 200,000 people (Visa and Mastercard have about 30,000 each), but at least a billion people are affected by the cost of the credit card fees, then I think this is a strong hint that the efficiency surplus is higher than the impact the loss of these companies would have on the economy.

[Faisal2202]

Bitcoin is very volatile and requires more responsibility to store it safely, and we both know institutional investors and states wouldn't keep their coins in non-custodial wallets, but in custodial accounts, which comes with its own risks.

Gold ticks all the boxes for what a reserve asset should be, and bitcoin should only be adopted alongside it.

Institutional investors might prefer custodial accounts but states won't, because if I am a shareholder of IBIT I am choosing a custodial account, but if I am BlackRock I will either manage my cold storage or hire someone to do it, like they are taking Coinbase's services.

But it is a good point also, we are just looking at the small picture here, the benefit that Bitcoin gives us is far higher than gold, because there have been gold heists in the past in many wars mostly, banks, countries lost tons of gold. Imagine if they would have held BTC in their self custodial wallets and remembered their seed phrases or secured it anywhere they could want, the security they get this way is better in every way than gold. First I was about to say to the OP that gold is definitely not productive but BTC is also the same, but I then checked the numbers, let's say if 10% of the annual gold demand is for manufacturing purposes, the rest is for holding purposes, but in terms of BTC, the data shows from different reports, which I averaged to 60%, that is in holdings and the rest is in movement, also the other 40% is not in circulation for transactional purposes which OP said is a productivity of BTC, but still as he said BTC is more productive than gold, but in terms of percentage the numbers are good and supports BTC, but in terms of dollars or any other money system, things go different ways.

Anyway, security is just one lens to see BTC, OP preferred to see it from a productivity lens and there are many ways to compare both, the scarcity, moveability, divisibility etc. etc. and in every way BTC wins. Even if the recent Coldcard wallet hack or QC threats have put some doubt in the minds of people about BTC, I think that's just a phase from which it will come out stronger, that's it.

I have not yet mentioned the case where OP said gold mining has many bad impacts. Deaths are one of them, in ASM it is around 12k in a year, on paper and we know how it is in Africa, the videos I have seen, the rate is definitely higher than 12k, and in BTC it is near to zero.

[Myleschetty]

What do people think? Is this true, false or is the effect too small to be relevant? Are there other possible (and also negative) effects I forgot?

New idea will have unfavorable consequences.
The effect of this idea will be small relative to the global GDP but directionally on point due to how the replacement of gold monetary/asset with Bitcoin will generate net positive for the economy, while also reducing the deadweight in payment/settlement space and storage of an unproductive asset since BTC characteristics push out the time wasting, and money aspect of the traditional financial middleman role.

[Ambatman]

Bitcoin, instead, can be considered at least a bit productive: it has some advantages that benefit the economy if it is widely used, like eliminating some friction, above all in international commerce. It also could remove intermediaries which are of a "parasite" character in my opinion, like credit card companies which artificially inflate the prices of many goods due to the merchant fees.

This isn't an advantage or strength to it been used as a strategic reserve imo
But more of benefits of using Bitcoin.
Bitcoin and Gold quite seem to fall on same boat On being unproductive especially as a reserve.

What do people think? Is this true, false or is the effect too small to be relevant? Are there other possible (and also negative) effects I forgot?

Lets forget about volatility here since if such an implementation occurs
Bitcoin volatility might be lower or similar to Gold and biasly facing up.
The downside I can think of is the introduction of cyber risk.
Neglecting basic positive like easy auditing, divisibility or the fact that custodians and fee can be bypassed
It could lead to benign deflation.

[I_Anime]

The only thing I disagree with here is the word "replace".

Just like regular investors, when we are talking about reserves the governments and their central banks should also diversify instead of just having one asset in their vaults. Gold is still a solid thing to hold, the world trust it and it has a strong intrinsic value. Giving it up (replacing it) is wrong in my opinion.
Instead, other assets must be added to the reserves. Bitcoin is an excellent choice for that matter.

Adding bitcoin (instead of going full bitcoin) helps grow the reserves slowly too. It helps the adoption and help with things like "encourages innovation in the crypto sector" that OP mentioned. Otherwise if they just jump in and buy up a lot of bitcoin, it won't do any of that. It would just shoot the price up and create a shortage in the market killing bitcoin as money and turning it into an asset only.

I think Bitcoin could potentially take over some part of gold's role , but completely replacing it will may be difficult. There’s a reason bitcoin is often called digital gold. Like gold, it can serve as a store of value  and it’s have the potential to take over parts of gold economy roles . Personally the reasons I believe bitcoin won’t completely replace gold is that ; gold has thousand of years of history as a store of value while bitcoin is still a new technology, though with  time Bitcoin could gain more adoption and trust. gold also has some physical uses, physical uses like electronics ,jewelry, and other industries (not to talk of job opportunities too).  

[d5000]

This isn't an advantage or strength to it been used as a strategic reserve imo

Yes, the Bitcoin "productivity" seems to be linked mostly to the function as a payment network. Gold doesn't provide this, so this is an advantage for Bitcoin. Gold has more "local" consequences (for mining etc.) but that's a small part of the economy, while Bitcoin could affect positively a lot of activity related to payments.

However, my reasoning which I maybe should have been explained a bit better in the OP is the following:

If Bitcoin is used as a reserve or generally for "saving" money (being it by states, by companies or by retailers) then this could increase its valuation and boost its liquidity and also the usage for payments. If many people and companies hold Bitcoin, then they will be tempted to use this money directly for purchases. A higher valuation is also correlated with less volatility, which also would help it to be used more for payments.

Thus my conclusion is that a store-of-value usage very likely has also a positive effect on payment usage, and thus boosts the "productivity" effect.

The downside I can think of is the introduction of cyber risk.
Neglecting basic positive like easy auditing, divisibility or the fact that custodians and fee can be bypassed
It could lead to benign deflation.

The cyber risk is a good point, as is the proneness to human error mentioned by @stompix. On the other hand, gold reserves also have to be protected. It would require a thorough analysis on which of both assets has higher "security costs".

With the other points I agree. The "bening deflation" is an especially interesting point. If this means that deflation, for the first time in history, becomes possible without resulting in an economic crisis, then I think we'd be heading into a more sustainable economic future with less boom-bust cycles and less artificial demand for bullshit goods and jobs. It could, however, also generate a recession in the short term because the current economic system isn't accustomed to deflation and may have to re-balance first, and it would be crucial to handle that "transition phase" well, without the "common people" falling into poverty.

[Cryptomultiplier]

The only thing I disagree with here is the word "replace".

Just like regular investors, when we are talking about reserves the governments and their central banks should also diversify instead of just having one asset in their vaults. Gold is still a solid thing to hold, the world trust it and it has a strong intrinsic value. Giving it up (replacing it) is wrong in my opinion.
Instead, other assets must be added to the reserves. Bitcoin is an excellent choice for that matter.

Adding bitcoin (instead of going full bitcoin) helps grow the reserves slowly too. It helps the adoption and help with things like "encourages innovation in the crypto sector" that OP mentioned. Otherwise if they just jump in and buy up a lot of bitcoin, it won't do any of that. It would just shoot the price up and create a shortage in the market killing bitcoin as money and turning it into an asset only.

I think Bitcoin could potentially take over some part of gold's role , but completely replacing it will may be difficult. There’s a reason bitcoin is often called digital gold. Like gold, it can serve as a store of value  and it’s have the potential to take over parts of gold economy roles . Personally the reasons I believe bitcoin won’t completely replace gold is that ; gold has thousand of years of history as a store of value while bitcoin is still a new technology, though with  time Bitcoin could gain more adoption and trust. gold also has some physical uses, physical uses like electronics ,jewelry, and other industries (not to talk of job opportunities too).  

Gold according to history made America rich during the war 1 $ 2 and saw global wealth transfer in 1945. The U.S at then held up to 75% of gold and this was when they began to call the shots.

Nixon had to severe gold ties to the dollar and this created a global inflation but ensured that gold remained valuable as a store of value.

Until the present day, Bitcoin now known as digital gold relies on the Internet, Blockchain technology, of which makes it differ from gold that is in a vault somewhere.
So I think Bitcoin complements gold, but if it ultimately becomes the replacement for gold which I highly doubt, some people would lose their jobs, global monetary system would change and am very sure major part of its systems would become centralized and controlled by government and central banks as we see unfolding already in bits.