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Of course, I've read everything, including the article by Nic Carter [1] (which I highly recommend) and all his related articles on the subject. The comparison

Of course, I've read everything, including the article by Nic Carter [1] (which I highly recommend) and all his related articles on the subject. The comparison with gold mining is quite apt actually - one of the use cases for Bitcoin is to act as a store of value and hedge against inflation, precisely like gold. [1] https://www.coindesk.com/the-last-word-on-bitcoins-energy-consumption?amp=1 https://www.coindesk.com/the-last-word-on-bitcoins-energy-co...

qayxc 6y ago
> The comparison with gold mining is quite apt actually - one of the use cases for Bitcoin is to act as a store of value and hedge against inflation, precisely like gold. Ahem, the primary use of gold is jewellery, not a hedge value against inflation. That's where the vast majority of all mined gold ends up (plus some in electronics and medical applications).
- andreaorru 6y ago
  That's not entirely correct. Less than half of the demand for gold is for jewellery, and only a tiny percentage is used for technology. Almost half of it is held in vaults to act as a store of value. [0] Regardless of what the percentages are, the price of gold is mostly determined by speculation. It varies wildly during periods of economic uncertainty. Arguably, not because there's more or less demand for its industrial use cases, but precisely for the reason I mentioned: a big part of its value derives from being perceived as a safe haven for storing wealth and as a hedge against inflation. Bitcoin positions itself as a direct competitor in that sense. Its main narrative in the past few years has been "digital gold" or "gold 2.0". It has some of the same properties of gold (scarce, difficult to produce) and some better ones (fast and easy to transfer, easily auditable, impossible to steal or confiscate). I don't think Bitcoin is suited to be used as a currency to i.e. buy coffee. But it doesn't have to do that in order to succeed. Stablecoins are a better tool for that use case. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-industry-sector-share/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in...

qayxc 6y ago

> The comparison with gold mining is quite apt actually - one of the use cases for Bitcoin is to act as a store of value and hedge against inflation, precisely like gold. Ahem, the primary use of gold is jewellery, not a hedge value against inflation. That's where the vast majority of all mined gold ends up (plus some in electronics and medical applications).

andreaorru 6y ago
That's not entirely correct. Less than half of the demand for gold is for jewellery, and only a tiny percentage is used for technology. Almost half of it is held in vaults to act as a store of value. [0] Regardless of what the percentages are, the price of gold is mostly determined by speculation. It varies wildly during periods of economic uncertainty. Arguably, not because there's more or less demand for its industrial use cases, but precisely for the reason I mentioned: a big part of its value derives from being perceived as a safe haven for storing wealth and as a hedge against inflation. Bitcoin positions itself as a direct competitor in that sense. Its main narrative in the past few years has been "digital gold" or "gold 2.0". It has some of the same properties of gold (scarce, difficult to produce) and some better ones (fast and easy to transfer, easily auditable, impossible to steal or confiscate). I don't think Bitcoin is suited to be used as a currency to i.e. buy coffee. But it doesn't have to do that in order to succeed. Stablecoins are a better tool for that use case. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-industry-sector-share/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in...