SIMILARITIES
Gold |
Bitcoin |
Yearly new supply is limited to around 2,500 tons | 21 million bitcoin and can’t be increased. |
Deflationary in nature due to supply limitations | Deflationary in nature due to supply limitations |
Decentralized – no owner – part of planet | Decentralized – no owner – open source software |
Minimum Counter Party Risk – debased only if a new enormous supply is found (such as in an Asteroid) or new mining technology is discovered | Minimum Counter Party Risk – debased only if some error in the code is found or network effect dies down and is replaced by an alternate leading digital currency. The control is largely outside the hands of a small group of individuals |
Difficult to confiscate – through law i.e. executive order | Difficult to confiscate – through threats, viruses, scams |
Resource based acquisition – needs to be mined using machinery, labor, research and time | Resource based acquisition – needs computing power to solve the mathematical problems that unlock new Bitcoins |
Anonymous – Gold bypasses many organizational and financial structures | Anonymous – Bitcoins allow a bunch of illegal activity to take place |
Mysterious origin – No specific details on when gold became valuable, historians speculated to be dated back as far as to Egyptian | Mysterious origin – a person with a pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto is the creator of Bitcoin, only 11 years ago |
DIFFERENCES
Gold |
Bitcoin |
Intrinsic value through jewelry and electronics conductor due to its unique element that is malleable, ductile, noble and non-corrosive. | No intrinsic value as it does not have industrial use. |
Bitcoins can be rounded to 8 decimal places, known as a Satoshi, and there is room in the code to increase these decimal places even further. | Gold can be separated into many pieces (like recent gold credit cards that can be breakable into little pieces called gold combibars). |
Stable and long wealth preservation – 5000 years of history. | Very new, requires internet connectivity most of the time and possibility to break due to an unknown bug or be out competed by better technology in the future. |
Cumbersome due to weight and issue of authenticity | Fluid – can be sent across the globe at any time of the day for free |