Gold vs eGold vs Bitcoin
The introduction:
Gold
pros:
- limited supply - although it is possible to create gold in laboratory, but its price is still higher than the 'mined gold';
- tradition;
- durability;
cons:
- poor divisibility - it is practically impossible to pay for small day-to-day purchases with gold;
- physical form - it can be stolen from you not only by cracking your password but also by brutal, physical force;
eGold (gold deposit and a card linked to it)
pros:
- convenience - by using a card one can spend his money as he wish;
cons:
- centralization - thousands or even millions of people would keep their gold in hands of only (probably) few corporations;
- trust - because of the mentioned centralization, firms hedging the gold would have a good reason to try to counterfeit or steal the deposits;
- censorship - like in today banking/financial sector there would be also a possibility of excluding some people or groups from the electronic financial 'egold' system;
- tied to regional 'laws' - governments can interfere with the services of those centralized 'egold' providers;
Bitcoin
pros:
- supply limited by math and algorithms not by natural rarity of the element; it can't be artificially created in labs;
- great divisibility;
- no central authority, no central treasury/deposit;
- censorship resistance - because of decentralization;
- no physical form - possibility of a physical robbery can be eliminated - for example by memorizing the private key;
- regional 'laws' can have some impact only on the Bitcoin users, not on the technology itself;
cons:
- no tradition;
- still significant cost of transaction fees; it may be solved in the near future;
- still big price volatility;
- hostility from the governments - because it's a bigger threat for them than gold or 'egold'; it can result in more repression against the Bitcoin holders;
I could have missed something.
About open blockchains:
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