Bitcoin is Digital Gold! This isn't Wrong: Its like a DIGITAL Gold \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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Bitcoin is Digital Gold! This isn't Wrong: Its like a DIGITAL Gold

4274 sats \ 30 comments \ @kepford 21 Apr bitcoin

When people typically use the analogy of digital gold to describe bitcoin they mean that it is a digital asset that functions in the market in a way very similar to gold. By this they mean it is a store of value, not really a medium of exchange. This framing is not popular with the bitcoin is money crowd because when people use the digital gold framing they typically mean bitcoin isn't money. Its just a store of value. A hedge against inflation. It would never be used as money. It isn't good for buying stuff. Some that say this I'm pretty convinced are simply pushing this idea because of fear of the state. Others seem to really mean it.

The other day I was thinking about this and something occurred to me. I thought I understood gold before I understood bitcoin. I imagine like most people are similar. The truth is reading "The Bitcoin Standard" taught me much more about gold than bitcoin. In fact, I didn't really learn much about bitcoin from the book. I'm not saying its not a great book about bitcoin but rather my ignorance of gold was much greater than I realized. I imagine I'm not alone in that.

I remember thinking about gold after reading it... gold is pretty cool. Its properties are kinda wild. Gold has been used as money far longer than paper money. Its absolutely absurd to compare gold to bitcoin. Bitcoin is so new! But gold has qualities that make it unique among precious metals. These are not all unique properties but these are some of its qualities that make it a good money.

You cannot create it, you have to find/mine it.
You cannot destroy it.
It is fungible.
Its authenticity can be verified.
Its supply has a very small increase over time(for now).
It has been used for thousands of years as both a store of value and medium of exchange.

So why don't we use gold every day to buy goods. A common opinion is that it is because of greedy bankers and central planners but that's not the whole story. The truth is that gold died as a common money largely due to technology. Telecommunications and the speed of communication across great distances is what really supplanted gold as money. Gold was still used to back paper money(notes) but its use as the actual direct medium of exchange is largely dead. Bitcoin was not the first attempt to make digital money nor digital gold, but it has been the most successful by far.

So what am I saying? Bitcoin isn't digital gold but its a good analog. If you could make gold digital is would be great money. Bitcoin is a great store of value for the same reasons gold has been. Bitcoin however can be sent across great distances with ease and at the same time it can be stored for long periods of time at low cost. It is better than gold in both ways. As a store of value and medium of exchange. I can't send an oz of gold across the globe in seconds. I can't validate the authenticity of my gold with a simple computer.

My belief is that people that think bitcoin is only a viable store of value don't really understand bitcoin. Its true that currently under standard economic definitions bitcoin is not a generally accepted medium of exchange but that is only an issue of adoption and understanding. Bitcoin without lightning is still better than any fiat money. The dollar is only digital due to custodial services and trust in third parties. Our biggest problem with bitcoin as a medium of exchange is literally a lack of knowledge. This will be solved over time as people start to hold it to preserve their long term wealth. As fiat money dies and as regimes crack down on humans we will see a rise in desire for a new money. Sadly, I think most people will need to get wrecked before they get it.

My recommendation is to stop fighting over the "digital gold" label but instead agree and focus on the digital aspect. If gold was digital it would not have been supplanted by paper notes.

What do you think?

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70 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 21 Apr

It’s funny you brought this up because ‘ I’ve always interpreted “digital gold” as meaning something like “gold for the digital age.”

99 sats \ 1 reply \ @028559d218 21 Apr

Digital gold still means you can 'spend it.' The 'gold' part just means that you have the option of spending the gold, rather than saving it or hoarding it it's up to you.

The thing is... most people don't want to spend their gold. Their spend their paper money first. Then then hard money.

It's the same for goldbugs in my experience. Why 'spend the gold' which 'goes up' in a time of uncertainty (like today) and "save" in the stuff that deprecates against almost every other currency plus is designed to lose value every year.

It makes no sense.

Which is exactly why we see the 'hodling' behavior throughout the market.

Outside of Lightning for small transactions and 'trust maximization' like on Stacker... people don't want to spend gold unless there is a 'technologically' necessary way of using it like with micropayments... when nothing else works.

That's why Bitcoin 'the money' will be very large payments, or very small ones (micro) long before anything else.

My 2 sats

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 21 Apr

I hadn't thought about which kinds of payments would favor bitcoin, but that makes sense to me. Fiat is pretty optimized for the middle.

68 sats \ 1 reply \ @metadavid 22 Apr

I've never been a fan of pushing the "bitcoin will replace fiat" narrative. Not only is it too large of a leap for a non-bitcoiner to make, it floods the audience's mind with multiple potential points-of-failure. Now the person making the statement is being put on the defensive and often times, the person isn't well-equipped enough to defend it.

Keep it super simple.

Start with bitcoin being digital gold. This is a much smaller leap, and virtually anyone can defend that position quickly/easily.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 22 Apr

Well, I tend to agree. Before anyone would believe that they need to understand not only bitcoin but how fiat works. If they don't... they are just trusting in faith or following the crowd. We don't need people to believe this stuff IMO. We need them to need bitcoin and find it. It has to solve a problem for them. Spending is not a problem for most people in the west at least. Digital gold is a good metaphor for many people.

57 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby 21 Apr

I think people get hung up on the framing because it limits what Bitcoin can be but I think it is a good analogy especially when trying to explain Bitcoin to newbies.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 21 Apr

Indeed. This is what analogies are for. A starting point. People like me can get hung up and not see the forest for the trees.

30 sats \ 0 replies \ @LibertasBR 21 Apr

I agree with everything you wrote from beginning to end. Presenting, explaining and comparing it to gold is good until the second phase that gold doesn't cover, which is the digital and currency part. In this part they are completely different and this is where the reason why it is better comes in.

I agree that you shouldn't create an unnecessary fight with this label and take advantage of the opportunity to explain and adopt the digital.

27 sats \ 0 replies \ @Thisdaystacker 22 Apr

It's actually a digital gold cos it serves as a medium to digitally store value, just like the physical gold. Infact it is in itself, value.

31 sats \ 1 reply \ @Lazy_AMA 22 Apr

Ouch @kepford 🤦 we all know Bitcoin is digital gold and the only reason why you've always misinterpreted it for something else is because you are @Undisciplined and it's not funny at all.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 22 Apr

Ha! Didn't realize we had the spokesperson for bitcoin here. Very cool

7 sats \ 1 reply \ @Nzowashua 21 Apr

BIG NO , BITCOIN IS MORE THAN GOLD , CONTROL THE ECONOMY

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 21 Apr

0 sats \ 16 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 21 Apr

Seeing Bitcoin as digital gold, while not strictly incorrect, is problematic. Because it emphasizes the narrative that Bitcoin is a speculative commodity.

As a speculative commodity Bitcoin is being steadily captured by institutions and governments. ETFs and corporate Treasuries centralise custody and exclude their holdings from use for P2P payments. They include KYC tracking and taxation. They greatly enhance the ability of any US government to enact an Order 6102B.

It is only when used as a P2P payments protocol that Bitcoin provides an alternative to the payments hegemony that is fiat. Use of Bitcoin as 'digital gold' risks undermining Bitcoins use and capacity for use as a P2P payments protocol.

The bankers and governments are prepared to accept, even sometimes embrace and profit from, Bitcoin as a speculative commodity/'digital gold' , but they have and will continue to fight and obstruct the use of Bitcoin as a P2P payments protocol because when used as a P2P payments protocol Bitcoin challenges their MoE hegemony.

100 sats \ 15 replies \ @028559d218 23 Apr

If it's "digital gold"... then great. You can spend it. Hodl it, travel with it if you want to...

Mine it (for example in small quantities) and even spend those too.

Or just continue to HODL.

"Digital Gold" doesn't mean you can't spend it or exchange it peer to peer.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford OP 23 Apr

Exactly. You get what I am saying. Solomon is literally describing gold that is digital.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 23 Apr

Whoooooooooooosh.

0 sats \ 12 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 23 Apr

Whoooooosssssshhh! In some countries (mostly more authoritarian ones) use of Bitcoin as a MoE is explicitly outlawed. In the more 'liberal' western democracies, use of Bitcoin is usually not outright banned but is made extremely impractical by taxation reporting and payment obligations which result in most MoE being technically illegal and ultimately very slyly preventing widespread MoE use. The Digital Gold narrative discourages MoE use and reinforces the speculative commodity narrative which along with tax reporting obligations results in considerable obstruction of use of Bitcoin as a p2p MoE.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @kepford OP 19h

You are royally missing the point of this post... I wonder if you read it frankly.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @028559d218 19h

I read it.

And I don't agree that Bitcoin is really being suppressed as an MoE.

In the long run people will use Bitcoin as a MoE they'll have no choice. The US is 36 trillion in debt with apparently no way to pay it back.

So why the hell would someone want Dollars/Euros/Yen/paper money to use?

There is zero way that paper money can exist indefinitely... and no amount of cajoling and tricks can postpone the indebtedness of governments forever.

In the next 10 years when Lightning is "everywhere" and "Youtube Lightning" is a thing... noone will care about capital gains as it's good for business.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford OP 19h

Directed at Solomon, not you. He's a troll I guess.

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0 sats \ 7 replies \ @028559d218 19h

Drugs are illegal too dude. But that hasn't 'banned' them or made them inaccessible. Quite the contrary.

I believe people will use Bitcoin when they are ready... and it isn't the 'tax reporting' keeping people from using it, it's fiat money which is everywhere.

Why spend the money that 'goes up' when the paper money is guaranteed to 'go down' every year? There is an infinite amount of paper money... Bitcoin not so much so people spend the 'cheap' money rather than the 'hard' money first Gold is the same way.

Stacker News too is a total bubble... most people still know nothing about Bitcoin or think it's a speculative bubble/ponzi scheme of some sort. They have no idea where it fits in the big picture.

0 sats \ 6 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 17h

Making drugs illegal makes them very profitable. Making MoE use of Bitcoin illegal seriously reduces the number of people willing to use Bitcoin as a payment protocol as breaking those laws exposes them to risk of prosecution.

Thailand once led in adoption of Bitcoin then the military dominated Thailand government banned MoE use of Bitcoin and adoption plummeted. There are still a few brave Thai businesses who ignore this law but the law has resulted in considerable suppression of adoption and use of Bitcoin. Note Thailand is working directly with the Chinese in the development of the CBDC mBridge trade payments protocol and Thai government has used its own quasi CBDC payment system provide citizens with targeted payments during Covid- payments you can only use for essential like food not alcohol or cigarettes. Government who want to introduce CBDCs ghave a strong motive to prevent Bitcoin from getting popular uptake.

Even where Bitcoin MoE use is not outright banned as it is in most authoritarian countries the tax reporting obligations will discourage most people from using it as a MoE- most people don't want to break the law unless they really have a strong motive/reason to and there is no strong enough reason for most people to use Bitcoin as a MoE when that requires either absurd levels of recording and tax reporting, or ignoring the law and risking prosecution.

Here in New Zealand if you go to open a bank account you are asked whether you will be or ar involved in any 'crypto' activity- if you declare yes then you are very unlikely to be accepted by the bank. This applies equally to businesses. The banks and governments do not want citizens using Bitcoin as an alternative to fiat.

All governments who use fiat money to empower themselves and banks (nearly all governments! have strong motivation to prevent Bitcoin MoE use.

I cannot understand Bitcoiners who cannot see how Bitcoin being used as a MoE is a real threat to fiat operators and how fiat operators have either banned MoE use (eg China, Thailand etc) or stringently obstructed MoE use via tax requirements and threats of debanking(ie most of the 'liberal' democracies of the west).

@kepford cannot see and does not accept that China has won the trade war despite Trump already backing down and reframing his China tariffs ~ because USA cannot survive without the Chinese supply chains it has become dependent upon like a drug addict over the last 30-40 years.

Kepford ignores how the Bitcoin as Gold narrative encourages use of Bitcoin as a speculative commodity and discourages use as a MoE. Kepford cannot see how a world where Bitcoin is mostly used as a speculative commodity tracked and traced and taxed substantially reduces the threat it poses to fiat as fiats power comes primarily from its state backed monopoly over MoE.

Kepford calls me a troll when what Kepford does is exactly that which trolls do- they attack the messenger calling names while refusing to engage in good faith reasoned debate and contest of ideas - because they cannot accept the argument of the respondent but they cannot credibly refute them either.

The sly strategy of western bankers and governments has been to steer the Bitcoin narrative toward use as a speculative commodity and this has been largely successful with the vast majority of Bitcoin held by people under their jurisdictions held as a speculative commodity, taxed and tracked and traced and as a result posing very little threat to the fiat hegemony over MoE.

I do not accept that the outcome is inevitable- I do not want Bitcoin to end up completely captured and controlled as happened to gold in USA after Order 6102 and until 1971...if not since 1971 via ETFs and rehypothecation...

Yes we in most western democracies can still theoretically use Bitcoin as a MoE, but with hugely onerous technical barriers if we want to do so lawfully. Onerous barriers which have and will diasuade most businesses and consumers from bothering.

It is clear imo, that MoE use has been deliberately, slyly and successfully suppressed and that if we want to retain and expand the right to use Bitcoin as a P2P payments protocol the hugely obstructive tax requirements upon legal MoE use need to be acknowledged and removed.

Look at the pressure El Salvador has come under for simply declaring Bitcoin as legal tender.

Bitcoin as a MoE alternative to the state imposed bankers operated fiat monopoly is what the bankers and governments fear. It frees us of their domination and control over all our market place exchanges.

Bitcoin seen as and used as a KYCed, taxed, speculative commodity ('digital gold') is of little threat to them.

P2P payments are where the revolution lives and hopefully thrives, or dies, due to the sly and the sly serial obstruction of the fiat hegemony operators.

7 sats \ 2 replies \ @kepford OP 16h

Why did I suggest you might be a troll. Stuff like this.

Kepford ignores how the Bitcoin as Gold narrative encourages use of Bitcoin as a speculative commodity and discourages use as a MoE. Kepford cannot see how a world where Bitcoin is mostly used as a speculative commodity tracked and traced and taxed substantially reduces the threat it poses to fiat as fiats power comes primarily from its state backed monopoly over MoE.

I ignore this? I literally describe what people think of when they compare bitcoin to gold. I then go on to explain why their view of gold is wrong. Then I say this

My belief is that people that think bitcoin is only a viable store of value don't really understand bitcoin.

I'm not ignoring anything. You seem to either not comprehend what I write or just don't read it.

I go on to say

So what am I saying? Bitcoin isn't digital gold but its a good analog. If you could make gold digital is would be great money. Bitcoin is a great store of value for the same reasons gold has been. Bitcoin however can be sent across great distances with ease and at the same time it can be stored for long periods of time at low cost. It is better than gold in both ways.

I then literally say what you say I'm ignoring.

It is better than gold in both ways. As a store of value and medium of exchange. I can't send an oz of gold across the globe in seconds. I can't validate the authenticity of my gold with a simple computer.

Yes the state is going to try to keep their monopoly on MoE as long as they can. That's not what this post is about. Its about gold and how it was once a MoE and why it isn't any longer. And also why bitcoin is like a digital gold. One that doesn't have the same weakness that led to gold being only a SoV.

Does that make sense? I think we mostly agree and you just want to argue. LOL.

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7 sats \ 2 replies \ @028559d218 17h

I read your comment, thank you for your point of view.

My opinion is that in the next 10 years we'll see "Youtube Lightning" or the equivalent... allowing you to 'tip' and sponsor through micropayments your Youtube content creator through Lightning payouts.

Youtube or the equivalent will take a cut... but the majority will go to the content creator, allowing for tipping and incentivization of good content and of course more ad revenue for Youtube.

In this world, which we'll get to eventually there will be no 'capital gains' taxes on Bitcoin at least at micropayments... and micropayments through Lightning will be everywhere on the internet. Anti-Spam, Anti-Bot, Anti-DDOS plus online tipping similar to Stacker News will be common.

It's just better money, capital, and trust maximization on Lightning/Bitcoin and we'll get there.

When people really want and need to use Bitcoin as better capital and better 'insurance' for their hard work and labor... they will and the laws and education will follow.

I'm sorry about your experience in New Zealand, Capital goes where it is treated best and ultimately the banks will want in on Bitcoin custody as well.

A far as mBridge is concerned... would you want to save in the Yuan? It's hitting multidecade lows right?

Yuan falls to 2007 lows as US tariffs on China kick in https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/yuan-falls-2007-lows-us-tariffs-china-kick-2025-04-09/

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