Gold VS Bitcoin – Is there a difference?

in #bitcoin7 years ago

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To answer the question, of course there is, but does it mean that one is better than the other?

Gold, beautiful to look at, expensive to buy and a status symbol since it was first discovered. It used to be the measure of wealth for countries as well as individuals and a currency was valued by how much gold was backing it.

No more, ‘the gold standard’ doesn’t apply to the major economies as they all print money as and when they desire (often calling it quantitative easing). In times of economic uncertainty people often buy gold as a hedge against inflation and financial depression.

What happens though if you don’t have savings to protect? Don’t have assets you can liquidate (art, antiques, shares) to put into gold until economic certainty and growth returns? How do you protect your income? Make certain that you can indeed still provide for your family?

That’s a tricky question to answer because for the most part, things are out of your control. If you don’t have assets you can liquidate (sell) you can’t put that money into gold. You could pay into a pension but that will probably be dependent on share prices and dividends, which, in an economic downturn could be worthless.

Bitcoin could be the answer, despite all the negative headlines you see every day; bitcoin is a bubble, bitcoin is a scam, bitcoin is worthless and so on.

Is it though? It launched in 2009 and if you’d invested $10 in 2010 you’d have bought some 3000 bitcoins (slightly more I know) today you’d be worth around $42 million. If you’d invested the same in gold, assuming you could have invested as little as $10, today it would be worth around $12. Not a huge lot of good to you as a way to provide for your family.
We know then that gold is more stable, and bitcoin fluctuates but always seems to keep going up. From that perspective then, bitcoin is more useful the less fiat money or other assets you have.

Now that bitcoin is so expensive of course it’s not as easy to get hold of (unless you get paid in it) and, like gold, is out of reach of most people. Or is it? You can’t mine gold (not easily anyway) but you can mine bitcoin. You don’t even have to have your own expensive mining equipment, you can sign up to a cloud mining service that just sends you the bitcoin (or portions of it). You invest whatever you can afford, always remembering that you should only invest what you can afford to lose and, that this is a long-term strategy. Then you sit back and let the mining commence.

It’s long term because no matter what, cloud mining does not give you quick results, unless you have a lot of money to buy computing power. What it does do it put you in control of some of your financial resources. Once bought, the computing power is there for however long you’ve contracted for.

Just like gold has similar rivals, like silver and platinum. Bitcoin too has rivals like Ethereum, Dash, Litecoin, Monero and others. You can cloud mine all of them and they all have the potential to increase in value.
Cryptocurrencies have one benefit over gold, well maybe more than one;

  • Much cheaper to get into
  • Can mine it
  • Can earn it
  • Can buy with it
  • No government or bank can play fast and loose with it
  • Easier to convert back into fiat
  • Can put it on a pre-paid debit card

There is so much more to cryptocurrencies, so I urge you to research and learn. Taking control of your finances is one way to protect yourself from inept politicians and unscrupulous bankers. Don’t you owe it to yourself and your family to at least investigate?

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SuperiorCoin can also be used as store of value and it is untraceable. Can be used also for payments with cheap fees. Many people have misconception that BTC is untraceable and thats not true although others truly are.

Absolutely true, bitcoin though from the point of view of this article is more about it as a store of value compared to gold, with the added benefit of it being readily usable. Superior on the other hand does work beautifully as a currency.

I'm taking my mining gains and look forward to investing in gold coins or silver bullion.

There's gold in them that hills! Gold is physical and known around the world as a medium of exchange from one's hand to another. CrYpTo is too but less known with a bit more steps in between from the owner to the user but not difficult just different. The difference for me is "in hand" and an older history with gold. I do like CrYpTO's though as they are planting some very strong roots.

I wrote this article three times, each time trying to simplify because in my research I came to realize that gold is not nearly as useful as bitcoin etc. Plus to buy significant amounts of gold is beyond most people, which is where crypto comes in.

Oh, I agree although I think that gold holds a special place in peoples hearts. For some just being a physical asset that one can hold in their hand and control is all there is to it but lets face it CrYpTo's are the future whether a good thing or bad. Gold has been manipulated and held down in pricing for decades and true gold bugs know this as the very same entities who smash the price and tell you not to buy it do just the opposite. I'm glad CrYpTo's have come along to let those people know that there's another choice out there for common folk to park there $ and actually thrive. Let's hope it stays this way. I still say buy metals with some of the profits one makes off CrYpTO's for the ultimate hedge...............

I agree, if I had the resources I'd buy gold to keep my savings stable and crypto as an investment. But I'd only invest in crypto what I could actually afford to lose.

I love gold & bitcoin but when it comes to usefulness, I'll rather to choose bitcoin as an exchange. I like this article, it makes me wonder about the two. Upvoted & Resteemed. Also Followed you.

Both are good to have, the ultimate goal is to be able to exchange value anywhere in the world.

i love cryptocurrency.....and bitcoin..
bitcoin is the very most popular coin in the crypto world

its about the price