These are 3 reasons why crypto beats gold: Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin
(Kitco News) As digital assets continue to struggle through the crypto winter following a massive selloff across the crypto space, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said crypto remains a better bet than gold. And here are his three reasons.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, was last down 70.5% from a record high of $69,000 just over a year ago, trading at $20,374.91. Ethereum was last at $1,562.51, down 68% from the all-time high of $4,878 recorded on November 10, 2021.
In comparison, gold has been one of the few assets with relatively limited losses this year. It is down about 10.6% so far this year, last trading at $1,635.90 an ounce.
Many industry experts expected gold to do much better due to stubbornly high global inflation. But the precious metal was pressured by a strong US dollar and higher government interest rates, which have been promoted in light of an aggressive tightening policy pursued by the Federal Reserve.
In a recent tweet, Buterin slammed gold as a decentralized authority for money, stating that crypto is a better bet.
Ether’s co-founder said gold is “incredibly inconvenient”, “difficult to use” and “doesn’t support secure storage options like multisig.”
The precious metal is especially difficult to deal with when you’re “dealing with untrustworthy parties,” Buterin said.
According to him, “gold has less adoption than crypto, so crypto is the best option.”
Buterin’s comment was in response to New York Times bestselling author of Soonish, Zach Weinersmith, who questioned crypto’s merits over gold. Weinersmith asked why not choose gold when we are looking for an alternative to centralized authority for money.
Here’s Buterin’s response in full: “Gold is incredibly inconvenient. It’s hard to use, especially when dealing with untrusted parties. It doesn’t support safe storage options like multisig. At this point, gold has less use than crypto, so crypto is better bid.”
Gold is incredibly impractical. It is difficult to use, especially when dealing with untrustworthy parties. It does not support secure storage options such as multisig. At this point, gold has less adoption than crypto, so crypto is the best option.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) 26 October 2022
This is not the first time Buterin has criticized gold. In his 2020 endnote blog post, the Ethereum co-founder called gold “lame.”
Looking at the changing role of economics, Buterin asked the question: “How should we rethink our models of the world?” One of his key messages is that cryptocurrencies and the technology behind them have an important role to play going forward.
“It’s a world in which blockchains and cryptocurrencies are well equipped to play an important role, but for reasons that are much more complex than many think, and have as much to do with cultural forces as anything economic (one of the more underestimated the cryptocurrency bull cases).which I’ve always believed is simply the fact that gold is lame, the younger generations realize it’s lame, and that $9 trillion has to go somewhere).
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