Gold has a strong market as a store of value that doesn't depend on government. The characteristics that make it good for this: it is naturally scarce, doesn't

Gold has a strong market as a store of value that doesn't depend on government. The characteristics that make it good for this: it is naturally scarce, doesn't degrade, it's easily divided, you can hold a lot of value in a small amount of physical weight (compare to silver), it's fairly easy to exchange for local currency at a time of your choosing. Hence, it has historically functioned as a store of value. Bitcoin has been designed to have the same advantages. It's weaker because it's more complex to deal with (at the moment). But it's stronger than gold in that - so long as the algorithm holds - its scarcity is guaranteed, and it's easy to use for electronic transactions. Bitcoins compete with gold for mindshare with people who want to be able to store value in a way that isn't subject to the whims of government - who can start printing lots of money at any time of their choosing and thereby wipe out people with savings.