Wrote this to Peter Schiff on Twitter/X and wanted to repost it here too. I have never heard him give a good explanation for a lot of this!!
——
@PeterSchiff what is money? It should be something that is agreed upon as a medium of exchange but otherwise should not have much utility other than its ability to coordinate trading of goods and services.
Other than being backed by the US government, dollars have minimal value. Maybe you could burn them for heat, but otherwise the value of the dollar (prior to convertible back to gold) is strictly related to their ability to allow trade between parties with disparate products, i.e., the problem where I have eggs and want your apples but you don’t want my eggs. We need to find a good that both of us want in order to facilitate trade. The dollar works because for a long time most of the world wanted dollars. It has a strong network and functions as one of the best currencies.
That’s what Bitcoin provides…the strong network that gold never had. Lack of a decentralized network that could not be manipulated is one of the reasons why it failed as a money.
The dollar could survive in the long run but only if it is provably backed by a fixed amount of bitcoin.
Money should be durable, portable, fungible, verifiable, divisible, scarce, have an established history, and be censorship-resistant.
Gold checks a few of these but bitcoin checks them all. (Well, maybe not established history when you compare golds thousands of years of store of value versus bitcoin’s less than two decades!)
You know what money is. How can you not say that bitcoin is money especially given that Block will be supporting bitcoins on its Square terminals? Suddenly the utility of bitcoin skyrockets while gold remains a shiny rock.
Yes, gold can be “tokenized,” but good luck getting that token to be accepted anywhere. I have never heard you explain how a third-party verifying the authenticity of the gold token is any different that the current fiat system.
The Bitcoin network does not rely on any third-party for verification. Heck, even trading gold coins has its risks of an unknown quantity of real gold.
The gold network requires trust. Trust of the individual handing me a gold coin or trust of the institution authenticating the gold as real.
Bitcoin solves the reason why gold is an inferior money.
https://btcfixesthis.org/frequently-asked-questions/
aoeu /
npub12j…cck68
2025-05-28 02:02:45
Author Public Key
npub12j9w6u70p0v5cp3hsu4k4nfvswthmhsr6azakewg4ae9zmrej0fq6cck68Published at
2025-05-28 02:02:45Event JSON
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"content": "Wrote this to Peter Schiff on Twitter/X and wanted to repost it here too. I have never heard him give a good explanation for a lot of this!!\n\n——\n\n@PeterSchiff what is money? It should be something that is agreed upon as a medium of exchange but otherwise should not have much utility other than its ability to coordinate trading of goods and services.\n\nOther than being backed by the US government, dollars have minimal value. Maybe you could burn them for heat, but otherwise the value of the dollar (prior to convertible back to gold) is strictly related to their ability to allow trade between parties with disparate products, i.e., the problem where I have eggs and want your apples but you don’t want my eggs. We need to find a good that both of us want in order to facilitate trade. The dollar works because for a long time most of the world wanted dollars. It has a strong network and functions as one of the best currencies.\n\nThat’s what Bitcoin provides…the strong network that gold never had. Lack of a decentralized network that could not be manipulated is one of the reasons why it failed as a money.\n\nThe dollar could survive in the long run but only if it is provably backed by a fixed amount of bitcoin. \n\nMoney should be durable, portable, fungible, verifiable, divisible, scarce, have an established history, and be censorship-resistant.\n\nGold checks a few of these but bitcoin checks them all. (Well, maybe not established history when you compare golds thousands of years of store of value versus bitcoin’s less than two decades!)\n\nYou know what money is. How can you not say that bitcoin is money especially given that Block will be supporting bitcoins on its Square terminals? Suddenly the utility of bitcoin skyrockets while gold remains a shiny rock.\n\nYes, gold can be “tokenized,” but good luck getting that token to be accepted anywhere. I have never heard you explain how a third-party verifying the authenticity of the gold token is any different that the current fiat system.\n\nThe Bitcoin network does not rely on any third-party for verification. Heck, even trading gold coins has its risks of an unknown quantity of real gold.\n\nThe gold network requires trust. Trust of the individual handing me a gold coin or trust of the institution authenticating the gold as real. \n\nBitcoin solves the reason why gold is an inferior money.\n\n https://btcfixesthis.org/frequently-asked-questions/",
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