Despite the sluggish price, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency has been settling more transaction volume than gold since Q2 2017.
Bitcoin Showing More Utility Than Gold
Bitcoin [coin_price] is on track to clear more transaction volume than the global gold markets.
Bitcoin has been clearing more tx volume than global gold markets since early 2017.
BTC: on pace to process $1.1 trillion in 2018 transactions
Gold: on pace to process $0.4 trillion in 2018 transactionsSources: https://t.co/eVqQiq56gv for BTChttps://t.co/zqh4eykqNb for Gold pic.twitter.com/oc5piRvrXE
— Kevin Rooke (@kerooke) August 15, 2018
Interestingly enough, though, this is not a one-off event – it has been happening consistently since the second quarter of 2017 after the world’s first cryptocurrency hit ‘parity’ with the price of an ounce of gold in spring of last year.
It’s also worth noting that despite the serious hit Bitcoin took in 2018, it’s still outperforming the precious metal by a factor of two.
In less than a decade, Bitcoin is already showing it has more utility in the digital age than the precious metal that has been the de facto store of value for thousands of years.
Commonly Compared
This is far from being the first time when gold has been compared to the world’s largest cryptocurrency. John Pfeffer, serial entrepreneur and partner at Pfeffer Capital, said earlier this year that Bitcoin is the first viable replacement for gold.
The famous Winklevoss twins also made a strong statement in late 2017, saying:
Taking bitcoin in isolation… we believe bitcoin disrupts gold. We think it’s a better gold, if you look at the properties of money. And what makes gold gold? Scarcity. Bitcoin is actually fixed in supply so it’s better than scarce… it’s more portable, its fungible, it’s more durable. It sort of equals a better gold across the board.
The director of VanEck/MVIS also spoke highly of the cryptocurrency compared to gold, noting that:
Gold today has around $7 trillion outstanding. If you take, say, 5 to 10 percent — I’ll let everyone do the math — bitcoin has upside.
Meanwhile, at the time of writing this, all the top 20 cryptocurrencies but Ethereum Classic are trading in the green, according to CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin (BTC) [coin_price] is recovering slightly after plunging under $6,000 earlier in the week.
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