Gold vs. Bitcoin is a debate that has heated up ever since the virtual currency took off a few years back. Crypto proponents believe that it’s time to move on from gold as the standard store of value, and Bitcoin’s is the obvious replacement. However, according to one investment mogul, the two are not directly opposed and both have their own pros. Only ignorant millennials believe that Bitcoin can replace gold as a store of value, he added.
Frank Holmes believes that gold is still the best store of value. Holmes is the CEO of U.S Global Investors, an asset management firm that specializes in investments in emerging markets and natural resources. In an interview with Kitco News, he explained why there are those that believe Bitcoin will replace gold:
“I think there’s a whole audience of ignorant millennials. […] They (the millennials) should do their homework. They should open up their history books on why gold is so significant. Why the great ‘love trade’, that if you love your country you should have gold in reserve. If you have a crisis, your paper money goes down in tremendous value. Gold is what bailed out Britain, getting it over to Canada, and then trading to get weapons from America. It was gold that did it.”
The Resilient Crypto Community
And while he doesn’t think Bitcoin will replace gold, Holmes is still a great crypto fan. He believes that Bitcoin’s momentum will continue. According to him, the crypto community has shown great resilience during the crypto winter. This has been one of the main factors behind the bounce back.
He explained:
What’s important during this whole year is that even though the price fell 80% to 90% depending on the coins, you had an increase of wallets out of people buying bitcoin, and that’s a sign that we’re ready for the next bull cycle.
Indeed, the crypto community has proven that it’s not here for the hype. According to a report by Chaninalysis last year, the number of personal Bitcoin wallets has steadily increased even during the bear market. Bloomberg further supported this, citing a report by Flipside Crypto. The report revealed very high activity in crypto wallets even before the current bull run.
The JP Morgan Turnaround Signalled Bottom
Holmes believes that the market hit its bottom when JP Morgan announced its own crypto, the JPM Coin. The bank, which is the largest in the U.S had not held back its criticism against cryptos before that. The CEO, Jamie Dimon, had especially been a vocal crypto skeptic before the turnaround.
Homes, who also serves as the CEO of Hive Blockchain stated:
And Bitcoin bottomed when JP Morgan came up with their coin. So, they trash talked Bitcoin all the way down until February of this year when they released their coin. All of a sudden we had a bottom in Bitcoin
The Bitcoin vs. gold debate is certainly not going to end anytime soon. Grayscale Investments has been one of the leading voices campaigning against gold. In it’s latest effort, the investment firm conducted an extensive #DropGold campaign. According to its CEO Barry Silbert, its ads had registered over a million views, excluding TV commercial numbers.