http://www.altcointoday.com/gold-bug-peter-schiff-calls-bitcoin-digital-fools-gold/
Never in my life did I hear a person talk so much nonsense and bullshit as Peter Schiff. Honestly, I think he should be ashamed to speak this negative about Bitcoin. First of all, I think the discussion whether you need to own gold or Bitcoin is nonsense. You should invest in both. Secondly, if he doesn't realize that Bitcoin is superior to Gold, then he isn't as smart as he thinks he is. In the meanwhile he is ruining his followers finances. What did gold bring to them the past years other than losing purchasing power ? All his talks about how the FED is destroying the purchasing power of the dollar while in the meantime he himself is destroying the purchasing power of his followers buy prohibiting them to buy Bitcoin. This guy is just insane ... a raging madman with an ego bigger than his good for himself.
For me Peter Schiff is officially a crazy old man that doesn't know what he is talking about. Andy Schiff used to be the same but at least he saw he was wrong and now he is pro silver/gold AND Bitcoin. But Peter Schiff is just a waste of time ... the destroyer of his followers purchasing power trying to sell him his gold that just recently got another blow while today Bitcoin for the first time in history went over gold in value. Over 5 years gold will be worth nothing compared to Bitcoin but this crazy madman will stil be sticking to his nonsense that Bitcoin is fools gold. What a pathetic performance from this guy.
Personally, I think Gold IS better than bitcoin...and least for long term stability and safety. There's probably a lot more reward potential in Bitcoin. But right now, a determined government like the U.S. or Russia could destroy Bitcoin if it wanted to because of the the combination of their ability to generate hashing power or go after large concentrations of hashing power. There's also way too many issues for the average non-technical person to have to deal with right now. How to set up a wallet, how to make sure you never ever lose you keys, the complete lack of safety in online wallets and exchanges, etc. Heck, I doubt most people adequately back up their pictures and other personal documents. To not adequately back-up a cryptocurrency wallet with a large investment would be disastrous. And even then, you are only ever one hack away from losing everything. These types of issues have to be overcome before large scale investment will ever take place. Until then, it's largely early adopters only.
I think that cryptocurrency has a huge future with infinite investment potential, I'm just not sure that Bitcoin is the answer or that safety and ease of use are where they need to be yet. Until they are, it's going to be an unstable and bumpy ride.
You can have that opinion. I am not against gold. What I am gainst is a person that is blind to see Bitcoin's potential. I didn't say Bitcoin is perfect. At least not yet. But neither is gold. You can't divide gold like you can with Bitcoin. You can't send gold to the other side of the world instantly. There are many reasons to be pro gold or pro bitcoin. But there are 0 reasons to be against one of them.
Well, I listed several reason that one might be against bitcoin that don't apply to gold. I'll add one more. Given Bitcoins stability record, given that it is at all time highs right now, it is a terrible time to invest in Bitcoin (though that could change tomorrow).
Having said all that, I don't think Peter Schiff is right in this case. I think Bitcoin has a long future ahead of it. But one does have to wonder if his Facebook/Myspace comparison is accurate. What is the advantage of Bitcoin if another cryptocurrency comes along that does everything better? Arguably that's happened already. So what is to keep everyone from moving their investment from Bitcoin to a technologically superior cryptocurrency and thereby making Bitcoin worthless?
And I listed other reasons that are against gold but that don't apply against Bitcoin.
His Facebook/Myspace is nonsense. Maybe his Facebook/Myspace is more like Bitcoin/Gold and Bitcoin is making gold useless. It doesn't matter if tomorrow comes another crypto that is somewhat better than Bitcoin. Bitcoin has advantage of being the first and therefore having by far the biggest marketcap. People will only chose to put their money in Bitcoin. There are currently coins that hide privacy. They are a Bitcoin clone with privacy. People know that and they know this is better. Still they chose Bitcoin. Schiff's example is just nonsense that is hurting his followers.
Today I read an article on silverdoctors.com about silver and gold smash. And these people brainwashed by garbage economists like Schiff are saying that they don't care ... they just keep stacking. If they would have put all that money into Bitcoin, they would have been rich by now. But this fake economist with a too big ego is just selling nonsense to make himself rich by selling people his gold. Peter Schiff is a scam and the Bitcoin price proves just that.
I don't think coming out of the gate first means you win. Otherwise myspace would be ruling the world of social media and not facebook. Look at Digg vs. Reddit, Chrome vs. Netscape, IBM vs. the clones, and infinite other examples. While other cryptocurrencies do not yet have the market cap of bitcoin, it does not mean that they never will. By your argument gold is far superior to Bitcoin and always will be because it has a larger market cap (Bitcoin's market cap is a fraction of a percent of gold).
Gold has a proven track record of thousands of years as a store of wealth so I don't think there is any scam in recommending or believing in Gold (and other precious metals). Gold does not have the explosive growth potential that Bitcoin has (the main advantage of precious metals is that they protect you from inflation) but it is foolish to believe that Bitcoin is at this point a safe long term investment. And sure, anybody could have been rich if they invested in Bitcoin at the right time. That's true of anything. The trick is also getting out at the right time.
I think one day the cryptocurrency world will settle on a handful of meaningful options (or maybe more). But I don't think early success means a given cryptocurrency, even Bitcoin, will be successful forever. Personally, I think it will rise to a much higher price than it is at today but at the same time, I'm not convinced that it will not eventually fall back down. Maybe I'm wrong. I look forward to seeing what happens either way.
The Myspace example is not really comparable. Myspace didn't had such a huge community of people pushing it up. When Bitcoin came out many smart people that were knowledgeable about the financial system immediately recognized Bitcoin's potential. These people teamed up and are pushing to make Bitcoin better. How can you compare this to Myspace ? The whole world is pushing to make Bitcoin succeed. The only other crypto that has this privilege is Ethereum. The probability that some random guy discovers something that takes away Bitcoin's marketcap is almost 0 ... he has to beat the smartest and most knowledgabe guys out there. Good luck waiting for this to happen. Bitcoin can only fail if Bitcoin fails; not by getting overtaken by some other coin.
Gold protects against inflation ? Tell that to those people that put their savings in gold when it was at 2000 $. They are on big losses now. Almost 50 % purchasing power lost. The same holds for the silver stackers. Not a hater though. I invested in both too.
I am not against gold or silver. I just keep thinking Peter Schiff is a retard with his anti-Bitcoin view. He is an economist. He should use his brain and logical reasoning when downtalking Bitcoin, not his feelings of trying to get rich trying to sell people his gold. Mark Maloney sells gold too but he sees Bitcoin's potential. Andy Hoffman used to be anti-Bitcoin too, but he completely flipped his opinion. But Peter Schiff is simply behaving like a little stupid kid. I am not saying people should put all their savings in Bitcoin. That would be insane. But it is very smart to diversify in it. As his guest opponent said: if 5 % of gold's marketcap flows into Bitcoin, Bitcoin will be 22.000 $. Imagine buying now 10.000 euro Bitcoin and this happens ... And if the FED keeps smashing down gold and silver, I am sure even more than 5 % will flow into Bitcoin. This was the exact reason why I started to stop investing in gold and silver and moved to Bitcoin.
Look what a difference with Mike Maloney
http://thedailycoin.org/2017/03/02/bitcoin-meets-gold-price-future-money/
Yes, if all your bitcoin is in one wallet, you are one hack from losing it all. But the same is true should you decide to keep all your gold in one safe - you are one break-in from losing it all.
I only have a few hundred dollars worth of bitcoin and even still it is in multiple wallets.
The number of wallets doesn't necessarily matter if they are in one place (i.e. on the same PC). I don't have a significant amount of gold but I imagine most people that do have it in a bank or otherwise insured. And a decent safe is less likely to be broken into than your computer (or an exchange or online wallet). There are a lot of reasons one might want to invest in Bitcoin but because it is a safer investment than gold is not one of them.
You are absolutely right but IMHO this is details. My point is: security concerns exist with regard to any and all currency. Can BTC can be adequately secured? I'd say, yes. Can gold be adequately secured? I'd say, yes.
So in this regard the two currencies are not, IMO, drastically different.
My point was that for the average non-technical person, bitcoin is far more difficult to secure and it would be easy for someone not terribly familiar with the technology to lose their investment through a careless act or inadequate protection. On the other hand, most people know not to leave a bar of gold sitting on their lawn and you aren't going to accidentally delete it or lose it in a hard drive crash.
I agree that both CAN be adequately secured. I just don't think that sufficient ease of use is there yet that would allow for large scale investment. I'm sure that will change in the future, the question is whether or not Bitcoin will still be the dominant cryptocurrency then.
gold is money bitcoin is currency.
gold/money is better.