Why Bitcoin Is NOT Gold!
Nathaniel Popper’s Digital Gold talks about gold as if it is Bitcoin. Many bitcoiners say that Bitcoin is like digital gold. But there is osmething these bitcoiners are missing. Bitcoin is not digital gold. It is a nice analogy, but really what it comes dangerously close to is a marketing device meant to mislead people into thinking Bitcoin is something that it is not.
Bitcoin is comprised of code and manmade programmed mathematics govern how many bitcoins there ever will be, but when it comes to gold and silver, God and nature have decided how much gold and silver there will be.
Bitcoin is not tangible like gold is tangible. Many people argue that bitcoin is tangible, that I can hold it on my computer, but considering everything the world has learned about the NSA, it is painfully clear that, in this respect, Bitcoin does not stand up to the test like gold does. I can hold gold, like cash, and transact with it not online. This is something gold does not do.
Bitcoin is five years old. Gold is thousands of years old and has been money forever. This fact alone makes these two assets fundamentally different. It is here you start seeing the manipulative ways of bitcoiners.
What is gold? Here is Wikipedia’s definition:
Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au (from Latin: aurum) and atomic number 79. In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly reddish yellow, dense, soft, malleable and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements, and is solid under standard conditions. The metal therefore occurs often in free elemental (native) form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins and in alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver (as electrum) and also naturally alloyed with copper and palladium. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides).
Wikipedia’s definition of Bitcoin:
Bitcoin is an online payment system invented by Satoshi Nakamoto,who published the invention in 2008 and released it as open-source software in 2009.The system is peer-to-peer; users can transact directly without needing an intermediary. Transactions are verified by network nodes and recorded in a public distributed ledger called the block chain. The ledger uses its own unit of account, also called bitcoin. The system works without a central repository or single administrator, which has led the US Treasury to categorize it as a decentralized virtual currency.
The only thing tangible here is the palpable difference between gold and silver! And THAT is a good thing.
Bitcoiners should embrace how Bitcoin is different from gold, instead of reducing themselves to gimmicky marketing tactics like calling Bitcoin digital gold. There can be truly be no digital gold.
