Greet the new king?
For the last 4,000 years, gold has been globally recognized as a safe haven for value. From being used to preserve the wealth of Egyptian pharaohs in the afterlife, to remaining as bars in modern vaults, gold has been the solid money upon which civilization was built.
Up to this moment.
There's a new money in town, Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a new species of money
The code of life is written in an organism from its beginnings. Satoshi carefully designed the DNA of Bitcoin, or genetic code (its computational code), to be the best money ever created. We can think that the code of #Bitcoin represents instructions that have been written to incentivize the organization and coordination of its cellular function.
That genetic code manifests itself through traits (characteristics of an organism) that may be visible or not.
In biology, a trait is a characteristic of an organism. According to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, organisms that possess traits that allow them to adapt better to their environment compared to other members of their species will be more likely to survive, reproduce, and pass on their genes to the next generation.
The #dinero is different. Money has traits that allow it to survive and thrive. Bitcoin is a new species that has traits far superior to its predecessors.
Scarcity: How much of the supply exists and how much will there be in the future?
With the #oro we do not know how much has been extracted and we do not know how much will be extracted. But we know there are enormous amounts of gold in the ocean and in asteroids. Just one asteroid, Psyche, has several metals worth the gigantic sum of $10,000 trillion dollars. As we can easily see, the foreseeable scarcity of gold is very low.
With Bitcoin, we have an accurate measure of the supply: 21,000,000, which anyone can audit with their home computer.
Verifiability: can you trust that it is real?
Gold requires expensive machinery to validate it at a reliable level. However, this still comes with verification errors, as we saw in China, where 83 tons of fake gold bars ($2.8 billion) were copper covered in gold. Additionally, other contracts had been made on top of this gold, leading to a series of additional losses.
The supply of Bitcoin, each transaction made, and the new transactions that occur can be easily verified using a home computer running a full Bitcoin node.
Divisibility: How small can you make it?
Gold can be divided into smaller pieces, but they must be cut prior to the transaction and its verification has a prohibitive cost.
Bitcoin is divisible up to 1 / 100,000,000 parts called "Satoshis" and, as mentioned before, can be easily verified with a computer at home.
Portability: Can you move it?
Gold is extremely heavy and difficult to move physically. And since it is not digital, you cannot transact with it on the Internet.
Germany recently repatriated its gold reserves of $31 billion, or 743 tons, from Paris and New York, which took 5 years at a cost of $9.3 million. The process was a madness:
The gold was likely moved to Frankfurt at a very high cost.
Road transport was avoided because it would increase the number of drivers and the bars are too heavy to move in considerable volumes.
Lawyers had to review the contracts to ensure it was insured during transport (in case it was lost or stolen). Many insurers only pay in dollars, rather than the precious metal, which could catch the central bank off guard if the price of gold rises between the signing of the contract and the safe arrival of the bars at the Bundesbank vaults.
All bars had to be examined by a team of 5-8 people using X-ray machines and other techniques to assess the purity of the metal.
Bitcoin would have required a minimum energy consumption and from 10 to 60 minutes depending on your trust in Bitcoin confirmations.
Finally, gold will never exist natively on the Internet in digital format.
Resistance to confiscations: can it be stored securely?
Gold must be stored in large vaults with guards and security equipment. When transported, additional insurance must be contracted and special security hired.
Bitcoin can be securely protected using a small hardware device for $50, writing your keys on a piece of paper or metal plate, or by memorizing them.
Bitcoin is the main predator of money.
Bitcoin has been finely tuned for its environment through its exceptional genetic code and the manifestation of that code in the form of superior traits.
Bitcoin is the main predatory money and its existence is the precursor to the extinction of gold.