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Bitcoin vs Gold with Anthony Scaramucci and Peter Schiff

Will gold or Bitcoin be the dominant asset of the future?

Since the world economy was plunged into crisis as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic many analysts have predicted a period of great instability. In normal times investors would seek to hedge against volatility by buying gold. But this time some are putting their money elsewhere – into Bitcoin and other digital currencies. And that raises a fundamental question: Will gold or Bitcoin be the dominant asset of the future?

While gold has at least a 2,500-year head start as a widely accepted, global medium of exchange and value, Bitcoin supporters argue it can be expensive to store and tricky to transfer across borders in its physical form. Gold can be easily confiscated and it isn’t particularly divisible in a hurry. Bitcoin, however, has none of these drawbacks. The supply is inelastic and capped (only 21 million digital coins will ever exist). You can send it around the world as easily as you would an email. And It’s fungible, resilient, verifiable, independent of any government and easily divisible. In the minds of millennial investors, there’s no doubt that digital currencies like Bitcoin are the asset of the future.

Let’s come back to earth, say gold’s defenders. Bitcoin may have passed a lot of milestones but none of its achievements give it any intrinsic value. Gold is a stable store of value because it has been used in jewelry and decorative arts for thousands of years. You can’t wear a Bitcoin bracelet and the value of cryptocurrencies is far more speculative than that of gold. Even some crypto conferences refuse to accept Bitcoin as payment for attendance fees because volatile price changes can wipe out a merchant’s profit margin within a matter of hours. Gold, on the other hand, is a tried and tested asset held by investors and central banks to the tune of $3.7 trillion. If inflation is coming you want to hold a real asset that can hedge against it — something that can’t be inflated away by relentless money creation and currency debasement. That asset is gold, not the speculative bubble of Bitcoin. And just in case you haven’t heard, inflation might be back – in a big way.

Who’s right and who’s wrong?

 


Speakers

For Bitcoin

Anthony Scaramucci

Founder and Managing Partner of SkyBridge Capital, former White House Director of Communications


Founder and Managing Partner of SkyBridge Capital, an alternative investments firm with around $10 billion in assets under management including Bitcoin. He served as the White House Director of Communications in 2017 for an infamous 11 days. He is the author of three books: The Little Book of Hedge Funds, Goodbye Gordon Gekko, and Hopping Over the Rabbit Hole, a 2016 Wall Street Journal best- seller.
For Gold

Peter Schiff

Economist and chief global strategist for Euro Pacific Capital


Economist and chief global strategist for Euro Pacific Capital. He is chairman of Schiff Gold, a precious metals dealer specializing in investment-grade gold and silver bullion. He also hosts The Peter Schiff Show, a popular podcast about the economy in which he often denounces the rise of cryptocurrency.

 

Chair

Anne McElvoy

Executive Editor of The Economist and host of The Economist Asks podcast


Senior Editor at The Economist and head of Economist Radio podcasts. She is a regular presenter of arts and politics shows on Radio 3 and Radio 4, and a panellist on the BBC's Moral Maze. She also writes a weekly political column on British and European politics for the Evening Standard.

 

Speakers subject to change.