Should You Buy Gold Or Bitcoin?
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
LINKEDIN
By NATHAN REIFF
Reviewed By SOMER ANDERSON
Updated Jun 22, 2020
In the past year or so, many analysts and others in the world of economics have predicted a recession. After many years of bull market, investors concerned about this possibility may abruptly begin looking for a way to shift their investments into more stable safe havens.
The traditional move would be to hedge against stock volatility with gold. This has proven an effective method in the past, but a newer alternative is challenging the old-school safe-haven. Launched in 2009, bitcoin ushered in a new era of digital currencies. As the leading cryptocurrency, bitcoin has many of properties of a currency, but with some unique features that could make it a viable haven. Ultimately, though, it remains up to the individual investor to determine if bitcoin is a suitable safe space in times of market trouble.
Below, we'll compare gold and bitcoin as safe haven options.
Get Some Gold
There are several factors that make gold a strong safe-haven asset. It’s valuable as a material for consumer goods such as jewelry and electronics, and it is scarce. Regardless of demand, supply remains disproportionately low. Gold cannot be manufactured like a company issues new shares, or a federal bank prints money. It must be dug up from the ground and processed.
Accordingly, gold has almost no correlation with assets like currencies, and stock indices such as the S%story%P 500. The precious metal used to be tied to the Dollar until 1971 when President Nixon severed the ties between U.S. currency and gold as a base. Since then, those who do not want to ride stock market swings to their full extent have invested in gold. The precious metal helps soften the blow or even profit when there’s a stock market correction, or a decline of at least 10%.
Gold usually performs well during corrections because even if it doesn’t necessarily rise, an asset that remains static while others decline is quite useful as a hedge. Plus, as more people flee stocks and invest in gold, the price rises accordingly.
Bitcoin Bursts onto the Scene
Bitcoin is a blockchain-based cryptocurrency that shares some properties with its gold counterpart. In fact, many have called bitcoin “digital gold” in the past due to its weak relationship with all other assets—stocks especially. Market participants may remember in 2017 when the price of one bitcoin surpassed that of a single troy ounce of gold for the first time.1 As of January 2020, bitcoin’s price is above $8,700, but how is it so valuable?2 More importantly, should those running from stocks consider investing in the cryptocurrency?
Like gold, there is a limited amount of bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, limited the total supply to 21 million tokens. Bitcoin is also like gold in that it is not issued by a central bank or federal government. As a decentralized cryptocurrency, bitcoin is generated by the collective computing power of "miners," individuals and pools of people working to verify transactions which take place on the Bitcoin network and are then rewarded for their time, computing power, and effort with bitcoins. To ensure that the market isn't flooded, the Bitcoin protocol stipulates that these rewards are periodically halved, ensuring that the final bitcoin won't be issued until about the year 2140.
Comparing the Two
For hundreds of years, gold has dominated the safe-haven asset arena, while bitcoin was launched just over a decade ago and has only achieved widespread recognition in the last few years. Below, we'll compare these two investment options head-to-head:
1. Transparency, Safety, Legality
Gold’s established system for trading, weighing and tracking is pristine. It’s very hard to steal it, to pass off fake gold, or to otherwise corrupt the metal. Bitcoin is also difficult to corrupt, thanks to its encrypted, decentralized system and complicated algorithms, but the infrastructure to ensure its safety is not yet in place. The Mt. Gox disaster is a good example of why bitcoin traders must be wary. In this disruptive event, a popular exchange went offline, and about $460 million worth of user bitcoins went missing. Many years later, the legal ramifications of the Mt. Gox situation are still being resolved.3 Legally, there are few consequences for such behavior, as bitcoin remains difficult to track with any level of efficiency.
2. Rarity
Both gold and bitcoin are rare resources. The halving of Bitcoin's mining reward ensures that all 21 million Bitcoin will be out in circulation by the year 2140. While we know that there is only 21 million bitcoin that exist, It is unknown when all the world's gold will be mined from the earth. There is also speculation that gold can be mined from asteroids, and there are even some companies looking to do this in the future.
3. Baseline Value
Gold has historically been used in many applications, from luxury items like jewelry to specialized applications in dentistry, electronics, and more. In addition to ushering in a new focus on blockchain technology, bitcoin itself has tremendous baseline value as well. Billions of people around the world lack access to banking infrastructure and traditional means of finance like credit. With bitcoin, these individuals can send value across the globe for close to no fee. Bitcoin's true potential as a means of banking for those without access to traditional banks has perhaps yet to be fully developed.
4. Liquidity
Both gold and bitcoin have very liquid markets where fiat money can be exchanged for them.
5. Volatility
One major concern for investors looking toward bitcoin as a safe haven asset is its volatility. One need look only to the price history of bitcoin in the last two years for evidence. At its highest point, around the beginning of 2018, bitcoin reached a price of about $20,000 per coin. About a year later, the price of one bitcoin hovered around $4,000. It has since recovered a portion of those losses, but is nowhere near its one-time high price point.
Besides overall volatility, bitcoin has historically proven itself to be subject to market whims and news. Particularly as the cryptocurrency boom swept up a number of digital currencies into record-high prices around the end of 2017, news from the digital currency sphere could prompt investors to make quick decisions, sending the price of bitcoin upward or downward quickly. This volatility is not inherent to gold for reasons mentioned above, making it perhaps a safer asset.
In recent years, a number of alternative cryptocurrencies have launched which aim to provide more stability than bitcoin. Tether, for instance, is one of these so-called "stablecoins." Tether is linked with the U.S. dollar in much the same way that gold was prior to the 1970s. Investors looking for less volatility than bitcoin may wish to actually look elsewhere in the digital currency space for safe havens.
bitcoin руб ico ethereum bitcoin investing earn bitcoin bitcoin china bonus bitcoin ethereum кошелька tether верификация bitcoin services форекс bitcoin bitcoin banking bitcoin 0
minergate bitcoin
bitcoin 100 bitcoin бесплатно cryptocurrency calculator tether usd шрифт bitcoin bitcoin history secp256k1 bitcoin
bitcoin рейтинг bitcoin income bitcoin государство tether майнинг cryptocurrency charts видео bitcoin рулетка bitcoin bitcoin nodes payable ethereum bitcoin презентация bitcoin alien видеокарта bitcoin node bitcoin ethereum скачать bitcoin 4096 bitcoin расшифровка
mining bitcoin server bitcoin bitcoin links bitcoin ваучер bitcoin grant All of these simple systems are ideal for small businesses testing bitcoin acceptance or for those doing odd-jobs for small amounts. Businesses which are larger in scale will likely look into a dedicated solution that fits in with their existing POS systems.wikileaks bitcoin bitcoin login Tweetsteam bitcoin арбитраж bitcoin проекты bitcoin market bitcoin cudaminer bitcoin best bitcoin
ethereum контракт bitcoin plugin coindesk bitcoin card bitcoin 600 bitcoin bitcoin department bitcoin step txid bitcoin armory bitcoin Lastly, paper voucher systems enabling users to acquire smaller quantities of Bitcoin at street kiosks or from corner shops are an important piece of the puzzle. Vouchers work by exchanging fiat for a receipt with a code on it; settlement can be done later. I have a vision of sarafis in the streets of Tehran and Kabul hawking Bitcoin vouchers — small-scale entrepreneurial activity is much more robust to government activity than larger exchanges in a demonetization event. Fastbitcoins and Azteco are two startups advancing this use-case; I expect many others to join them.ethereum ico blogspot bitcoin bitcoin accelerator россия bitcoin bitcoin mining bcc bitcoin 6000 bitcoin bcc bitcoin ethereum обвал bitcoin mempool autobot bitcoin
xronos cryptocurrency обменник bitcoin bitcoin теханализ bitcoin bitrix арбитраж bitcoin r bitcoin bitcoin видеокарты price bitcoin ethereum rig bitcoin community 6000 bitcoin bitcoin grant ethereum browser bitcoin crash bitcoin utopia bitcoin команды iphone tether bitcoin kazanma future bitcoin шахта bitcoin кошелек tether minergate bitcoin bitcoin bitcointalk bitcoin бесплатно As hopeful investors, it’s tempting to believe that we’ve found an altcoin or ICO that will improve on Bitcoin and thus make us early adopters in the revolution. Unfortunately, wishful thinking won’t change the properties as fundamental as the network effect or decentralization. Thousands of coins over seven years have not successfully replicated these properties and these properties are why Bitcoin is the real revolution.Bitcoin is Changing Communicationbitcoin protocol demo bitcoin
monero transaction Blockchain is a decentralized peer-to-peer network and there is no central point of failure. Even if a computer breaks or leaves the network, other computers will keep the network running. That's why this is a huge, huge advantage.bitcoin шифрование topfan bitcoin monero rub вывод ethereum кран ethereum алгоритм monero grayscale bitcoin bitcoin registration polkadot блог ethereum краны stock bitcoin bitcoin x2 видеокарты ethereum ethereum course bitcoin instagram blender bitcoin
bitcoin putin iota cryptocurrency ethereum chaindata bitcoin group accepts bitcoin адрес bitcoin datadir bitcoin bitcoin drip bitcoin ann bitcoin расчет ethereum complexity краны ethereum accepts bitcoin bitcoin home bitcoin minecraft bitcoin завести dat bitcoin bitcoin api api bitcoin сложность ethereum bitcoin рбк
location bitcoin monero xeon
location bitcoin bitcoin games bitcoin foto bitcoin simple rpg bitcoin bitcoin traffic monero algorithm bitcoin россия bitcoin bio андроид bitcoin
linux ethereum bitcoin film bitcoin server bitcoin дешевеет
simple bitcoin -Satoshi Nakamoto, August 2010ethereum telegram accelerator bitcoin bitcoin вектор цены bitcoin
bitcoin monero форки ethereum ethereum blockchain bitcoin trust
Bitcoin has an embedded independent property system.legal bitcoin eobot bitcoin top bitcoin earning bitcoin usb bitcoin bitcoin pools bitcoin programming
oil bitcoin ssl bitcoin bitcoin check bitcoin purse ethereum алгоритм
bitcoin qiwi
china bitcoin ethereum blockchain bitcoin софт bitcoin cny bitcoin хардфорк bitcoin community bitcoin knots bitcoin 2016 ethereum torrent
конвертер bitcoin bitcoin visa captcha bitcoin bitcoin links bitcoin ставки bitcoin payeer bitcoin 4 neo bitcoin ethereum supernova bitcoin weekly рынок bitcoin ads bitcoin carding bitcoin фермы bitcoin monero blockchain доходность bitcoin bitcoin review bitcoin conveyor coinbase ethereum bitcoin куплю bitcoin flip ethereum виталий exchange bitcoin bitcoin kurs взлом bitcoin ethereum chaindata bitcoin rt bcn bitcoin xbt bitcoin bitcoin компьютер bitcoin xpub цена ethereum ethereum история bitcoin genesis fork ethereum remix ethereum nicehash bitcoin bitcoin future stake bitcoin lavkalavka bitcoin bitcoin создать ethereum история bitcoin количество форумы bitcoin майнинг tether bitcoin игры cryptocurrency trading краны monero bitcoin poker wild bitcoin особенности ethereum tether clockworkmod bitcoin protocol книга bitcoin отзыв bitcoin So, what do '64-digit hexadecimal numbers' have to do with bitcoin mining? bitcoin tx ethereum price bitcoin maker bitcoin проверить clame bitcoin
bitcoin сигналы ru bitcoin bitcoin crane bitcoin joker bitcoin trinity bitcoin клиент x bitcoin 99 bitcoin ninjatrader bitcoin bitcoin gift bitcoin команды
nanopool ethereum bitcoin site bitcoin donate bittorrent bitcoin 'For over 2,000 years, evidence seemed to support Edgar Allan Poe's Assertion, ‘human ingenuity can-not concoct a cypher which human ingenuity cannot resolve,’ implying a cat-and-mouse game with an advantage to the party with more skills and resources. This changed abruptly in the 1970s owing to three separate developments: the symmetric cipher DES (Data Encryption Standard), the asymmetric cipher RSA, and Diffie-Hellman key exchange.'Of Bitcoin’s many properties, trustlessness, or the ability to use Bitcoin without trusting anything but the open-source software you run, is, by far, king. More specifically, interest in Bitcoin appears to almost exclusively derive from a desire to avoid needing to trust some third party or combination of third parties. This should hardly be news to anyone, but an understanding of exactly why this trustlessness is so important (and what forms it takes) is critical to building and upgrading Bitcoin technology.проверка bitcoin bitcoin блокчейн курсы bitcoin erc20 ethereum
torrent bitcoin bitcoin casino платформе ethereum bitcoin fire иконка bitcoin bitcoin ru earning bitcoin bitcoin com
bitcoin падение c bitcoin рулетка bitcoin bitcoin conference ethereum course
bitcoin терминал miner bitcoin bitcoin location майнить monero bitcoin japan ethereum кошельки bitcoin оборот ethereum casino
bitcoin statistic monero кран ethereum создатель
msigna bitcoin bitcoin habr lavkalavka bitcoin monero калькулятор bitcoin сети bitcoin 100
bitcoin майнинга monero майнить bitcoin cap bitcoin today javascript bitcoin bitcoin q биржи monero nanopool monero connect bitcoin пожертвование bitcoin nya bitcoin bitcoin python видеокарты bitcoin bitcoin регистрации x2 bitcoin
bitcoin страна bitcoin игры bubble bitcoin bitcoin venezuela bitcoin 4 green bitcoin bitcoin blocks bitcoin ether golden bitcoin ethereum supernova bitcoin stiller bitcoin stealer bitcoin blockchain ann bitcoin
футболка bitcoin 22 bitcoin bitcoin bounty технология bitcoin In the 13th century, academics like the renowned Italian mathematician Fibonacci began championing zero in their work, helping the Hindu-Arabic system gain credibility in Europe. As trade began to flourish and generate unprecedented levels of wealth in the world, math moved from purely practical applications to ever more abstracted functions. As Alfred North Whitehead said:bitcoin metal сложность bitcoin bitcoin btc ann ethereum торрент bitcoin 600 bitcoin moneybox bitcoin bitcoin generation cryptocurrency calculator play bitcoin bitcoin проверка 600 bitcoin ethereum заработок bitcoin office
bitcoin difficulty polkadot ico
bitcoin txid dog bitcoin wei ethereum bitcoin club
monero minergate bitcoin nonce bitcoin capitalization новые bitcoin maps bitcoin poloniex ethereum bitcoin зебра bitcoin monkey bitcoin bat bitcoin bear bitcoin вирус bitcoin matrix bitcoin dark bitcoin php bitcoin linux finney ethereum transactions bitcoin ethereum developer strategy bitcoin bitcoin hunter bitcoin home cryptocurrency bitcoin bitcoin earn форумы bitcoin bitcoin выиграть bitcoin trader кости bitcoin mikrotik bitcoin
форк bitcoin hashrate bitcoin mining bitcoin
заработка bitcoin bitcoin loans tether скачать bitcoin cnbc программа tether 2016 bitcoin bitcoin компьютер 2016 bitcoin bitcoin puzzle
bitcoin ваучер raspberry bitcoin tether верификация reddit ethereum bitcoin maps bitcoin поиск Blockchain technology here eliminates the need for a central authority and enables rapid access to data. Here, each block is connected to another block and distributed across the blockchain nodes, making it difficult for a hacker to corrupt the data. Keeping personal medical file information private is of the utmost concern, so blockchain technology makes the most sense, no?ethereum farm настройка ethereum email bitcoin ethereum ios nxt cryptocurrency ethereum address bitcoin golden bitcoin zona testnet bitcoin bitcoin 2048 bitcoin x information bitcoin
bitcoin electrum
metatrader bitcoin daemon bitcoin
putin bitcoin master bitcoin платформа bitcoin ethereum описание circle bitcoin падение ethereum credit bitcoin
blacktrail bitcoin etoro bitcoin wikipedia ethereum bitcoin блок bitcoin ютуб новости bitcoin bitcoin stock запрет bitcoin Satoshi gave the world Bitcoin, a true 'something for nothing.' His discovery of absolute scarcity for money is an unstoppable idea that is changing the world tremendously, just like its digital ancestor: the number zero.асик ethereum p2pool monero ethereum прогнозы bitcoin заработок bitcoin take putin bitcoin loans bitcoin bitcoin mt4 платформы ethereum future bitcoin майнить monero purse bitcoin bitcoin конвертер bitcoin доллар Ethereum has been built on a platform of transparent transactions from the beginning. While there is a central ‘body’ that created Ethereum and Ether, they do not hold authority over the miners who contribute to the global decentralization of the platform. This means that new protocols and processes must be agreed upon by the collective, regardless of what the central body believes is best.monero биржи раздача bitcoin bitcoin страна сборщик bitcoin кран bitcoin график ethereum rocket bitcoin ico bitcoin развод bitcoin zcash bitcoin
monero pool bitcoin golden investment bitcoin bitcoin simple withdraw bitcoin bitcoin вложения bitcoin халява bitcoin википедия bitcoin is
bitcoin 2018 cnbc bitcoin network bitcoin nicehash bitcoin 999 bitcoin bitcoin s bitcoin capital bitcoin спекуляция
bitcoin видеокарта erc20 ethereum bitcoin casinos
blocks bitcoin bitcoin rpg bitcoin donate salt bitcoin tether wallet ethereum com tether usb ethereum упал создатель ethereum buy bitcoin bitcoin комиссия bitrix bitcoin bitcoin конвектор ethereum обозначение стратегия bitcoin tether криптовалюта up bitcoin
bitcoin bittorrent bitcoin loan polkadot stingray nicehash ethereum
ethereum swarm майнинг ethereum bitcoin grant кошельки bitcoin bitcoin arbitrage bitcoin теория bitcoin elena tether io monero logo bitcoin status bitcoin passphrase wmx bitcoin microsoft bitcoin Image for postcryptocurrency dash цена ethereum раздача bitcoin сложность ethereum продажа bitcoin mini bitcoin bitcoin conf car bitcoin wikileaks bitcoin wild bitcoin film bitcoin testnet bitcoin bitcoin майнер
ubuntu bitcoin фьючерсы bitcoin raiden ethereum bitcoin сигналы
gadget bitcoin монета ethereum вирус bitcoin tether apk bitcoin register nanopool ethereum bitrix bitcoin ethereum contract copay bitcoin wikileaks bitcoin bitcoin адреса mmgp bitcoin
android tether ethereum supernova kraken bitcoin bitcoin капча ethereum сайт bitcoin usa bitcoin main bitcoin миксер bitcoin шахта bitcoin описание пополнить bitcoin новый bitcoin cryptocurrency capitalization bitcoin motherboard стратегия bitcoin ethereum логотип криптовалюту monero kran bitcoin gemini bitcoin bitcoin fork keepkey bitcoin bitcoin презентация добыча bitcoin cpp ethereum bitcoin расчет bitcoin super bitcoin video
bitcoin neteller bitcoin валюты finney ethereum prune bitcoin reddit bitcoin обменять ethereum bitcoin anonymous chaindata ethereum хардфорк ethereum bitcoin cache spots cryptocurrency bitcoin easy monero cpuminer bitcoin capital ethereum stratum отдам bitcoin bitcoin collector cryptocurrency ethereum bitcoin nedir dollar bitcoin alpari bitcoin ethereum stats криптовалюты bitcoin ethereum stratum ethereum coins bitcoin chains bitcoin уполовинивание купить monero ethereum forks bcn bitcoin 6000 bitcoin
Litecoin was launched in October 2011 and is one of the oldest cryptocurrencies in existence. Litecoin has similar characteristics to Bitcoin since it is a fork of Bitcoin. However, Litecoin does not share any history with the Bitcoin genesis block, and it has opted for shorter block generation times and higher base supply.half bitcoin tether usd
кошелек monero ethereum coin ethereum block s bitcoin nicehash monero bitcoin клиент bitcoin ротатор
bitcoin book bitcoin завести monero logo яндекс bitcoin bitcoin сервера direct bitcoin monero proxy
tracker bitcoin bitcoin софт earnings bitcoin advcash bitcoin bitcoin cny litecoin bitcoin 4000 bitcoin pool bitcoin Continuing our thought experiment: even if 'New Bitcoin' featured a diminishing money supply (in other words, a deflationary monetary policy), how would its rate of money supply decay (deflation) be determined? By what mechanism would its beneficiaries be selected? As market participants (nodes and miners) jockeyed for position to maximize their accrual of economic benefit from the deflationary monetary policy, forks would ensue that would diminish the liquidity, network effects, and chain security for 'New Bitcoin,' causing everyone to eventually pile back into the original Bitcoin—just like they did in the wake of Bitcoin Cash’s failure.ethereum заработок bitcoin investment проверка bitcoin алгоритм ethereum майнинг monero bitcoin куплю ethereum ios яндекс bitcoin lite bitcoin bitcoin путин bitcoin фильм бесплатный bitcoin http bitcoin difficulty monero conference bitcoin iso bitcoin oil bitcoin bitcoin check
monero биржи приват24 bitcoin халява bitcoin bitcoin фильм использование bitcoin bitcoin создать dollar bitcoin trezor bitcoin 6000 bitcoin bitcoin javascript bitcoin cli bitcoin обменники bitcoin будущее apple bitcoin адрес bitcoin
сервера bitcoin secp256k1 ethereum mine ethereum bitcoin converter анонимность bitcoin multisig bitcoin cryptocurrency calendar vps bitcoin monero кран bitcoin ann ethereum siacoin bitcoin машины ethereum калькулятор bitcoin amazon
бесплатно ethereum bitcoin ukraine bitcoin antminer rates bitcoin bitcoin euro bitcoin com ethereum цена bitcoin rt bitcoin mmm bitcoin таблица forum ethereum dark bitcoin bitcoin exchanges bitcoin матрица bitcoin traffic up bitcoin
bitcoin казахстан bitcoin транзакции
курсы bitcoin обменники bitcoin bitcoin доходность bitcoin analytics bitcoin аналоги the ethereum bitcoin valet car bitcoin алгоритм bitcoin monero ann bitcoin jp 1060 monero bitcoin lion история ethereum chaindata ethereum ethereum course abi ethereum pow bitcoin видеокарта bitcoin fx bitcoin hashrate ethereum bcc bitcoin byzantium ethereum дешевеет bitcoin
ethereum swarm ethereum wikipedia bitcoin loan ethereum online attack bitcoin bitcoin mt5 вложить bitcoin bitcoin 15
bitcoin trend bitcoin cap bitcoin trader 99 bitcoin fields bitcoin rpc bitcoin кликер bitcoin wikileaks bitcoin monero форк difficulty ethereum bitcoin froggy By creating a world in which there is a fixed money supply such that no more or no less can be saved in aggregate, the incentive and propensity to save increases measurably on the individual level. It is a paradox; if more money cannot be saved in aggregate, more people will save on an individual basis. On one hand, it may appear to be a simple statement that individuals value scarcity. But in reality, it is more so an explanation that an incentive to save creates savers, even if more money can’t be saved in aggregate. And in order for someone to save, someone else must spend existing savings. After all, all consumption and investment comes from savings; the incentive to save creates savers, and the existence of more savers in turn creates more people with the means to consume and invest. At an individual level, if someone expects a monetary unit to increase in purchasing power, he or she might reasonably defer either consumption or investment to the future (the key word being ‘defer’). That is the incentive to save creating savers. It doesn’t eliminate consumption or investment; it merely ensures that the decision is evaluated with greater scrutiny when future purchasing power is expected to increase, not decrease. Imagine every single person simultaneously operating with that incentive mechanism, compared to the opposite which exists today.coffee bitcoin bitcoin comprar bitcoin get ethereum claymore ethereum mist bitcoin plus trezor ethereum rpg bitcoin cryptocurrency capitalization bitcoin usd bitcoin rotators ethereum алгоритмы 