Gold or Bitcoin as the currency of safe haven?

in #bitcoin7 years ago

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Gold or Bitcoin as the currency of safe haven?

In this world of uncertainty, poor economy’s where is the best place to put your money for safe keeping? Do you go for the rock-solid tangible asset of Gold or do you put it into the gold of cryptocurrency Bitcoin?
Let’s look at the positives and negatives of both options.

Gold

Positive

  1. It’s a tangible proven asset that has stood the test of time.
  2. It’s rare and in decline and therefore has great value.
  3. It’s recognised world wide as a valuable asset.
  4. It’s offline and cannot be hacked.
  5. Proven increase in value.

Negative

  1. Not easy to trade in small amounts, if your holding is a single bar.
  2. It’s heavy and not digitally exchanged.
  3. Not many places take gold as a method of payment.
  4. Physical storage.

Bitcoin

Positive

  1. It’s digital.
  2. It’s easily traded online and in small percentages.
  3. An increasing number of vendors are accepting Bitcoin as a method of payment.
  4. Finite supply of Bitcoin, resulting in increased value due to supply and demand.
  5. It too can be backed up and made available via an offline wallet.

Negatives

  1. No central authority to refund transfers going to the wrong address.
  2. Nothing tangible to hold on to.
  3. Value is very volatile.
  4. Exchanges and wallets subject to hacking, resulting in a loss.
  5. Not everyone knows or understands what bitcoin is.

It’s a tough decision to make, especially if you have a large amount of money your want to protect. Maybe it’s best to split between physical gold and digital Bitcoin. This would give the best of both worlds and limit exposure.
Whatever you decide, make sure it’s right for you.

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Thanks for taking your time to read this.

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I use an online platform to trade between gold and bitcoin. I use the volatile bitcoin to increase investment and the gold as a stable​ baseline.

Good plan. Thanks for reading.

Thanks for the post. It's not all black and white between gold and bitcoin. You have to consider silver as well.

Gold's "physical storage" is not a negative, holding a safe haven is mainly a positive.

I understand what you're saying and recognise the importance of silver too. Silver can be likened to Litecoin I guess in the digital world.

Yep, I basically mean that when having a situation where AU truly acts as a safe haven, so does silver too. We still haven't seen an economic crisis like 2008 with era of cryptocurrencies. When that arrives, cryptos will be tested in a real crisis environment. The behavior can differ or equal that of precious metals.

Not a disagreement, just discussing! ;-)

@arpepa I welcome your comments as I'm not expert in this, but you have raised an interesting point where Cryptos have yet to be tested in a crisis. It's a day we all hope never arrives, but time will tell.

I'm not an expert either. However, your opening was important and I've been into these questions a lot . There are different kind of situations to have safe havens:

  • "normal everyday life"
  • world of (economic) uncertainty (to which you were referring most?)
  • pre-crisis situation (economic or else)
  • full-blown panic (major stock crash? ; to which I was referring earlier)
  • post-crisis environment

It strongly seems that Cryptos can work as safe havens at least for world of uncertainty. And yes, hopefully anything else won't be needed to test.

Upvoted.

Thanks for the upvote, I'll add you to my follow list.

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