“BTC Beats Gold”: CZ Counters Peter Schiff in High-Profile Bitcoin vs. Gold Debate

• CZ argued that Bitcoin outperforms gold in terms of utility, scarcity, and utility during the recent Bitcoin vs. Gold debate.
• Peter Schiff warned earlier about an imminent big Bitcoin crash, but JPMorgan says it would spark the next BTC rally.

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) and economist Peter Schiff finally had their much-anticipated Bitcoin vs. gold debate. CZ argued that Bitcoin (BTC) is superior to gold due to its verifiability, utility, scarcity, and performance over the years.

CZ Makes Case for Bitcoin Against Gold

The duo finally had their debate during the Binance Blockchain Week. CZ said users can verify BTC transactions instantly in several ways, making it more verifiable than gold. 

To prove his point, CZ performed an exercise. He gave Schiff a gold bar, which the Economist failed to differentiate whether it was real or not.

In response, Schiff described Bitcoin as worthless. He said one can do anything with the precious metal. According to Schiff, Bitcoin is nothing, even though he acknowledged that one can easily verify BTC transactions thanks to blockchain technology.

Schiff added that some industries and companies still need gold. According to Schiff, gold is scarce, which makes it valuable to holders.

Responding to the comment on scarcity, CZ argued that the quantity of gold globally remains uncertain. He said this is a stark contrast from Bitcoin, where everyone knows the quantity and its exact location.

This debate stemmed from an earlier question about which of these assets had more value. It led Peter Schiff to challenge CZ to the debate back in October. 

At the time, Changpeng Zhao fired back, criticizing Peter Schiff’s tokenized gold idea. As summarized in our earlier news story, CZ claimed the token depends on third-party promises.

CZ also replied to economist Schiff’s warning about a possible big Bitcoin crash, as mentioned earlier. The Binance founder noted that despite recent drops, Bitcoin has still performed much better than gold over the years.

Bitcoin Utility and Performance vs Gold

In the recent debate, the Binance founder also compared Bitcoin’s utility and performance against that of gold. He claimed that the utility of gold in commercial value is low, but Bitcoin has utility across a wide network.

CZ explained that bill payments took a longer time before BTC and crypto came into the picture. 

However, top crypto exchange Binance and other firms have made payments much faster. Considering this, the Binance founder declared Bitcoin as the best blockchain technology.

While still promoting Bitcoin as the winner in utility, CZ said some cards let users use Bitcoin for purchases. He, therefore, questioned how many people use gold to buy and sell, suggesting it has less utility than BTC.

In terms of performance, though it was argued that gold has surpassed the Bitcoin price over the past four years, CZ pointed out that BTC has outperformed gold over the past eight years.

Indeed, data from TradingView shows BTC has outperformed gold over the last 5 years. The leading coin is up 377%, while gold rose 127% within the same period.

As noted in our earlier post, JPMorgan views the Bitcoin October slump as a buying opportunity. The bank said the decline positioned BTC as an undervalued hedge against traditional safe-haven assets.