Peter Schiff is right about Bitcoin and the irony is completely lost on him
https://ift.tt/tW3HIMLq6
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE0YLdGPdt8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE0YLdGPdt8)
Listen at minute 41 if you are interested in hearing Schiff’s argument directly.
Schiff pejoratively categorizes Bitcoin as a pure collector’s item. I found this fascinating for many reasons made clear with a comparison to gold.
Originally, Gold was purely a collectors item. Some people valued it because they found it’s physical properties interesting and it allowed them to hold or create an object in which they could physically store value due to its relative scarcity. Over time, we discovered that gold had additional physical properties beyond being shiny and scarce that made it even more valuable.
Bitcoin right now is mostly still in the collectors item phase. People value it because they find it’s systematic properties interesting and it allows them to hold an asset which can digitally store value due to its absolute scarcity.
The difference between gold before the discovery of it’s industrial properties and bitcoin now is we do not need to discover anything additional about Bitcoin to anticipate its future value; we can recognize them in the present by looking at its source code. We know what widespread adoption of Bitcoin will mean for individual sovereignty, freedom from coercion and theft from the state, and its properties as a medium of exchange. When you buy bitcoin, you are implicitly saying that you believe you should be able to actually own something that no one else can take away from you. The downstream implications of this are deeply philosophical, paradigm shifting, and potentially a catalyst to increase human freedom and reduce suffering. That is the value that we can see in the present with bitcoin.
Gold has some properties that Bitcoin doesn’t have which give it real physical value (side note this is what I think people are really saying when they make the claim gold has real inherent value and bitcoin doesnt). Bitcoin has some properties that gold doesn’t have which give it differentiated digital, and I would argue social, value. Both had to start as collectors items, because the only kind of money that doesn’t start in that manner is fiat. Fiat doesn’t have to start as a collectors item because you are forced to value it or the state will take your societal privileges away.
So in summary, I think Bitcoin is in fact a collectors item at the current moment and that isn’t a bad thing, it’s a necessary step in the progression of a non fiat asset becoming a money.
Cryptocurrency
