Gold V Bitcoin as hedge

[TheApe]

The current environment of impending inflation appears to be perfect for gains in either Bitcoin or Gold. Neither can be printed, so you would think investors would flock while Countries are printing money worldwide.

The question is which is the best hedge during this period. Can we discuss?

Some advantages I can see with Gold.

• Proven for hundreds of years.
• Old school folk may not be ready to embrace a digital asset like Bitcoin and stick with tried and trusted.
• Central banks are already hoarding large amounts of Gold. You would expect people to follow suite.
• There is only one Gold. There is always risk of investors flocking to a new improved cryptocurrency.

Some advantages of Bitcoin.

• Arguably will be easier to get hold of in a time of high demand and therefore rise quicker.
• Much smaller market cap of Bitcoin so potential of much greater gains with adoption.
• Young folk potentially more likely to trust then gold.

[Sovstacker]

Gold has been money for 2500 years.

Bitcoin after a decade is trying to stay alive...

[Kman]

Removed my comment due to inaccuracy  

[OneBlueSummer]

For over a year now in California they randomly shut off all power in cities with out prior notice for sometimes weeks. On purpose, ..in the name of safety.. to prevent forest fires... 

The world just made it illegal for months to go to parks, the beach, schools, and churches. But totally legal to go to weed shops and liquor stores. 

If you want a hedge, with gold, buy silver.

The fed could flick the switch on bitcoin at any second and the hedge is worthless. Forget that. I'd rather throw money a treasury bonds or penny stocks than crypto anyday. Hell even ETFs. Or what about just buying a couple acres of land, now that is a hedge!

[Nick1368]

The more I learn about Bitcoin the more I realise it's not for me.

 

[Airhead]

You have to feel for the people that mislay thier Bitcoin Wallet

https://tinyurl.com/y8v52adr

A little harder to mislay a stack of PMs

[TheApe]

23 minutes ago, Airhead said:

You have to feel for the people that mislay thier Bitcoin Wallet

https://tinyurl.com/y8v52adr

A little harder to mislay a stack of PMs

This is a good point.

But although Bitcoin will be easier to lose. It will also be easier to securely store.

[HawkHybrid]

the best hedge is stored supplies. eg grain, water etc.

between the two, gold 'should' be the better hedge. truth is nobody

knows as there is insufficient data for crypto's.

as an insurance, I would stick with gold.(stick with what you know)

 

HH

[TheApe]

1 hour ago, OneBlueSummer said:

For over a year now in California they randomly shut off all power in cities with out prior notice for sometimes weeks. On purpose, ..in the name of safety.. to prevent forest fires... 

The world just made it illegal for months to go to parks, the beach, schools, and churches. But totally legal to go to weed shops and liquor stores. 

If you want a hedge, with gold, buy silver.

The fed could flick the switch on bitcoin at any second and the hedge is worthless. Forget that. I'd rather throw money a treasury bonds or penny stocks than crypto anyday. Hell even ETFs. Or what about just buying a couple acres of land, now that is a hedge!

Agreed on land in theory. There is a risk that both land and property have been artificially inflated with the debt driven economy though.

The viewpoint around electricity is a bit end of days stuff though. I dont really buy into the Gold for the apocalypse scenario.

[Airhead]

1 minute ago, HawkHybrid said:

the best hedge is stored supplies. eg grain, water etc.

between the two, gold 'should' be the better hedge. truth is nobody

knows as there is insufficient data for crypto's.

as an insurance, I would stick with gold.(stick with what you know)

 

HH

Very true. 

Bitcoin is also extremely energy intensive where each transaction has to be acknowledged by all other Bitcoin nodes, roughly 215 KW. The energy consumption of mining Bitcoin is in the Terra watts, something I found quite shocking.  

[TheApe]

1 minute ago, Airhead said:

Very true. 

Bitcoin is also extremely energy intensive where each transaction has to be acknowledged by all other Bitcoin nodes, roughly 215 KW. The energy consumption of mining Bitcoin is in the Terra watts, something I found quite shocking.  

Good point. I wonder how mining Bitcoin cost compares to mining Gold cost. 

I cant help but think the real threat to gold wont be Bitcoin, but some new and more refined cryptocurrency. But short term Bitcoin seems to be most likely investors will flock to.

[Airhead]

4 minutes ago, TheApe said:

Good point. I wonder how mining Bitcoin cost compares to mining Gold cost. 

I cant help but think the real threat to gold wont be Bitcoin, but some new and more refined cryptocurrency. But short term Bitcoin seems to be most likely investors will flock to.

Flock might be an apt description ;o)

[HawkHybrid]

22 minutes ago, TheApe said:

But short term Bitcoin seems to be most likely investors will flock to.

 

speculators, not investors buy into bitcoin and other crypto's.

 

HH

[Guest]

The problem with Bitcoin is that it’s very, very fragile and volatile; I would rather use gold over Bitcoin. The younger generation may see Bitcoin favourable over gold, but not necessarily trust it, it all depends on their appetite to risk and how they view their losses. Sure, it may offer some anonymity much like the myth of Swiss accounts being untraceable, but you still need some sort of understanding as to how it works and if you don't - it is just a random string of zero's and one's stored on a hard drive somewhere.

Also, as already mentioned, it is extremely energy intensive on the PC processor to mine bitcoin because of the level of encryption used to keep it secure and how it’s been designed. Quantum computing could crack RSA encryption (but that is still a way off to come, read this article for more) but even using classical computer, there have been weaknesses and exploits in other types of encryption used today. And not forgetting the blockchain technology used to keep an audit trail of any changes made to the mined Bitcoin itself.

Yes and no @TheApe about being easier to securely store (not sure how to add in a quote when you edit a post) - there is the fight with malware writers that will steal any mined Bitcoin from crypto wallets from unsuspecting people. You can have the most secure platform built, but the weakest link is always the pink squishy thing sitting in front of the laptop; people are human and as such will make mistakes by clicking on a link in a spam email and hence get infected with malware, targeting cryptocurrency or otherwise. However, you don't need a safe box in your house under the floorboards (there goes my location 🙈) to store BitCoin, just a 1TB HDD will do, but even so that will still need to be securely stored, encrypted and sealed as well.

And also the number of vulnerabilities found in crypto currency platforms used to buy/sell mined Bitcoin have been exploited and used and sadly people have lost their money invested into it; if the company is not sufficiently propped up to cover loses, then that really changes the whole game. Here in the UK, the FSCS will not cover cryptocurrency losses since the platforms running are not an authorised institution, so from my standpoint, it is a big no to use. At the end of the day, if the software/infrastructure is not designed with security in mind, then it is as useful as a brown paper bag with your stacked gold in it sitting outside your front door with the words "GOLD IN HERE" written on it.

[Tn21]

I'm on the sidelines here, I didn't get into bitcoin or the crypto currencies and still yet to dabble with them. There have been incredible gains made on bitcoin and other cryptos and it has been very lucrative to those who took the risk at the start. 

At this momment in time I personally would not invest in cryptos it's just a risk I'm not willing to take. I do like to think I would eventually get into them but that is only if the prices come significantly down. 

 

I ruled out bitcoin at the beginning but in that time I ruled it out, had I invested I could have been in decent profit.

Il keep an eye on bitcoin but both eyes are focused more on Au and Ag 👀.

@Vegeta is a crypto fan. Would be good to hear your points.

 

[Airhead]

The kicker for me personally is that when Bitcoin mining was just starting I was undecided so joined the Seti@home project rather than mine bitcoin with my un-utilised CPU cycles. Well they say hindsight is 20/20, never discovered any aliens either.

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, Airhead said:

The kicker for me personally is that when Bitcoin mining was just starting I was undecided so joined the Seti@home project rather than mine bitcoin with my un-utilised CPU cycles. Well they say hindsight is 20/20, never discovered any aliens either.

Is the SETI@Home still going? 🤔

I know that there is the project for collecting spare CPU for modelling the protein spikes on COVID-19.

[Airhead]

22 minutes ago, C60 said:

Is the SETI@Home still going? 🤔

I know that there is the project for collecting spare CPU for modelling the protein spikes on COVID-19.

Seti is still running, sort of. 

I have not seen a project on BOINC specifically targeting Covid19 research, but that does not mean one does not exist, could be RNA World:

"RNA World seeks to identify, analyze, structurally predict and design RNA molecules on the basis of established bioinformatics software".

 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Airhead said:

Seti is still running, sort of. 

I have not seen a project on BOINC specifically targeting Covid19 research, but that does not mean one does not exist, could be RNA World:

"RNA World seeks to identify, analyze, structurally predict and design RNA molecules on the basis of established bioinformatics software".

 

Interesting - I’ll have a look at that 👍

I knew I read an article about COVID-19 and proteins - it’s called the Folding@Home project, interesting reading as the project is generally about protein folding but at the moment they have focused on COVID-19 proteins 

[Vegeta]

Bitcoin will have steady growth the volatility is going to slow down eventually we have to remember it's new that's why its volatile and not much people understand it. Bitcoin is like a Hedge Game, you may lose a lot if you buy at the wrong time but if you hold on long enough it always swings back your way eventually to help you break even or profit If you hold on longer how long is the golden question, the volatility is a feature of the game. As people are still sceptical about it but see its potential they'll buy little chunks they can afford to buy at a time and it will gradually go up as it's been doing the last few weeks. The thing with crypto is it's a roller coaster so I can take you for a swing anytime but I think its gradual growth from here to the ATH.

[Vegeta]

Bitcoin halving is coming up too and with the QE coming into the market, the stock market on its last legs, the squeeze on physical metals etc some people are going to have no choice but to try and use cryptocurrencies mostly bitcoin but a select few others to get their wealth onto the other side 

[TheApe]

1 minute ago, Vegeta said:

Bitcoin halving is coming up too and with the QE coming into the market, the stock market on its last legs, the squeeze on physical metals etc some people are going to have no choice but to try and use cryptocurrencies mostly bitcoin but a select few others to get their wealth onto the other side 

What impact will this halving have on price?. I dont keep up with the Bitcoin world.

[Vegeta]

14 minutes ago, TheApe said:

What impact will this halving have on price?. I dont keep up with the Bitcoin world.

so basically the supply of the newly mined bitcoins coming onto the market will be cut in half may the 11th, this is in a time where people are seeking to buy inflation hedge assets and people are getting stimulus checks and all, i feel like its like a double whammy economic advantage an increase in demand with a decrease in a supply, so we could either see crazy price movement like 2017 but im leaning more towards steady growth as its been doing it last few weeks coming up to the halving, with bitcoin it really just depends who holds the most coins atm, its looking like the long term holders are in control theres nothing the market manipulators can do to shake them out at this moment in time so they may have to send the price upwards a little bit to entice people to sell before crashing it back down, but some bitcoin people have really really strong hands so lets see how this all unfolds in the next 6 months.....

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Added 0 minutes later...

i did a video talking about bitcoin if anyone wants to check it out 

 

[adamthetaller]

Got a small amount of Bitcoin & Etherium (<£100) from various 'time-share-esq' sign-ups etc, considered buying more but it's just been too volatile for me - my total has ranced from <£40 to >£120 since I got it, with no real consistency in direction. Gold's been nice and steady for me so far and I don't need electricity to look at it... It's also shinier!

[Vegeta]

2 hours ago, adamthetaller said:

Got a small amount of Bitcoin & Etherium (<£100) from various 'time-share-esq' sign-ups etc, considered buying more but it's just been too volatile for me - my total has ranced from <£40 to >£120 since I got it, with no real consistency in direction. Gold's been nice and steady for me so far and I don't need electricity to look at it... It's also shinier!

yh nice i got metals too, when their is a liquidity crisis as big as this, and their printing unlimited amounts of money i think they are going to send all financial asset prices up. Just not sure exactly how its gonna play out but i think they send crypto up due to the volatility and make a killing, you have to try and profit from the volatility thats the feature in the game. The key is to get out when youve made some nice profit set a target and sell because you know its a roller coaster they like to take for a ride, bleed it dry then they will take their money elsewhere ( hopefully metals especially volatile silver which moves with big swings each direction  )