If you spend much time on the alternative media financial forums, you’ve likely seen the arguments for and against both Bitcoin and gold. As a long-time owner and trader of both commodities (yes, let’s call them both that), and as a veteran writer on investment topics of all kinds, I thought I’d share my own experiences and opinions about the two.

First let me say that when I read through the replies to articles about Bitcoin, two things become clear to me:

1)Bitcoiners (HODLRs) are passionate about the premier cryptocurrency and:

2)Goldbugs hate Bitcoin (BTC) with a burning passion

I’ll confess that I don’t understand either side of this debate for either commodity. I neither love nor hate either BTC or gold, and I will go further to say that if you do, not only are your values seriously misplaced, you’re likely losing out on missed investment opportunities as well. Perhaps a real-world example would be of some help.

In the 1990’s I refused to get involved in the nascent .com boom because I had a visceral dislike of the “product” itself-partially because I didn’t understand it, but partly because of my appetite for “real things” that you could touch, hold, and feel-the equivalent of a gold bug mentality. So, I missed out on the huge tech run up that could have made me a lot of money. By the same token, I had friends who lost fortunes because they didn’t understand what they were buying and held on to their .com stocks way too long. They assumed that once the trend was rolling, it would stay in motion forever. The point is, we were both wrong. My aversion to .com stocks cost me early in the boom and my friend’s love of the novelty of the technology caused them to hang on until many of those stocks went bust. Remember Pets.com? You should always be open to new investment products but don’t become too comfortable with your gains because nothing lasts forever.

I mention this to illustrate that no investment is perfect and that sometimes your own stubbornness, laziness, or simple complacency can be your own worst enemy, especially when it comes to investing. If you love gold or BTC too much, you won’t open your eyes to other opportunities. If you hate one or the other, you’ll be missing out. So, the first rule of investing is: don’t love what you’re buying. It ruins your objectivity. Love should be reserved for your God and your family, not your commodities.

So, with that as a preamble, let’s explore the advantages and disadvantages of each of these and see which one is best for you. I want to stress here that I am not dispensing investment advice here: while I think both of these commodities are likely to increase over the coming years, my focus here is on their respective utility at this moment in time and their respective track records. Which is better for trading? For transporting? For holding? Let’s get into it.

Gold bugs will often correctly point out that the yellow metal has an impressive track record, being used as both a type of money and valued for its beauty and utility dating all the way back to the Stone Age. Gold has survived the rise and fall of empires and has acted as a store of value in good times and bad. BTC, of course, is relatively brand new by comparison, having only burst onto the scene in 2009. So, no argument here: gold has stood the test of time. Bitcoin has not-yet, anyway.

However, if you had put your money into BTC back in the day you’d have made way more money than if you’d invested only in gold, though, as this chart shows, either commodity would have beaten the stock market handily over the same period of time. Still, advantage BTC.

But I know what you’re thinking. You didn’t buy either BTC or gold just to measure success against fiat. You bought them for peace of mind, an inflation hedge, or as an alternative to fiat, especially in a SHTF scenario. So, let’s take a look at how practical it is to actually own and use these commodities, not simply to store them and (hopefully) watch them grow in value vs. the dollar.

Storage

Gold needs to be stored physically. Here I will not discuss gold that you do not physically have custody of. Although there are investment schemes that allow for electronic ownership of gold, bearer bonds, and fungible storage in vaults, most gold bugs eschew these options because “If you don’t hold it, you don’t own it,” and to some degree I think that’s true. So you can dig a hole in the ground in your yard or hide it in your home or put it in a safety deposit box at your bank, but it’s a bit of a pain to do any of those things, and all that is needed for Bitcoin custody is a simple cold storage device like a USB drive. You can even simply memorize your seed phrase to eliminate the need for any hardware whatsoever to access your BTC, so the King Crypto definitely gets the edge over gold in this case (although, given my age, relying on memory alone probably isn’t the smartest choice).

Trading

Gold bugs will often say, “what do you do when the Internet goes down?” of BTC, implying that an EMP-style catastrophe will create a scenario where crypto is useless. Point taken, and point to gold, although I have to say as an aside that neither goldbugs nor HODLRS are likely to survive such an event in the first place. But what about a day-to-day exchange scenario? How easy is it to use either commodity to buy ordinary things you might need? If I want to buy a cup of coffee, that’s mighty hard to do with either BTC or gold right now, so no matter what, you’ll need to convert either commodity into fiat to actually use it (though I will with some bitterness note here that the original promise of BTC was as a replacement means of exchange to the dollar). So, how easy is that?

Convertibility

Bitcoin is easy to convert. All you have to do is use a crypto exchange to convert your BTC to fiat. The process is to transfer your cold storage BTC to an exchange wallet and convert it to dollars that will be electronically credited to your bank account. It’s probably at most ten minutes of time if you already have the accounts set up. Gold isn’t so simple. You must physically transport the gold to a buyer, which is likely to be a local coin dealer, or you can box it up, insure it, and send it off to a big dealer like Kitco, who will wire you money after assaying the coins or bars. Advantage BTC.

Privacy

Early articles on Bitcoin ominously portrayed it as a shadow currency that was used by drug lords due to its anonymous nature. Nothing, unfortunately, could be further from the truth (unfortunately not because illicit drugs can’t be paid for that way but because BTC really isn’t anonymous). All BTC trades are on a public ledger that anyone can access. Furthermore, while theoretically you can find local private buyers for your BTC, you are far more likely to wind up selling your coins over an exchange for convenience’s sake, as I have. That said, you will most likely sell your gold to a dealer, who will be required by law in most states to take your ID as part of the process, and if it’s a large sale, they will pay you via a check made out in your name as well. So, I’d say the issue of privacy is a draw for both commodities as there really isn’t any in either case unless you sell to a private individual. Yes, you can convert BTC into one of the “privacy” coins, but again if you have to convert to fiat to use it, what good is that?

Price Realized

Another way to put this is, what kind of premium did you have to pay for the commodity when you purchased it, and what percentage of spot price did you receive when you sold it? That spread for BTC is around 3-5%, give or take. For Gold, it’s closer to 6-9%. Yes, you can get a better deal on gold by shipping it off to Kitco or similar outfits, but the shipping and insurance costs negate part of that extra money you’d get, and most people don’t want to lose sight of their gold that way. I know I don’t. Advantage BTC.

Transportability

How hard is it to cross borders with gold or BTC? How hard is it to successfully transport them in a SHTF scenario? If you cross an international border with gold, you cannot legally take more than $10,000 worth through the airport without declaring, which is basically two gold coins at today’s prices. If you take more than that, you must declare it to the customs officers or risk forfeiture to the authorities. Not only that, but you’d be well advised ton have on hand your purchase receipt for the gold you have. If you have a “bug out” country where you have a second home or legal residency that you’re trying to get to, this is a big drawback, especially if you’re flying in or out of some dicey situations, which might be the case in a SHTF situation. And believe me, there is no avoiding detection at the airport: they will find your gold! So don’t try it, you’ll lose it. The only way around this that I can see is that you could possibly avoid detection by crossing the border by car or boat, but again this is illegal and could not only cost you your gold but your freedom as well. Don’t do it. With BTC, on the other hand, there is no limit to the amount of money you can carry across borders without declaration of any kind. You can keep tens of millions of dollars on your Ledger wallet and have no need to declare that at all to the customs officers, and, as stated before, you can literally keep the “code” in your head to access the coins. Advantage: BTC.

Now, I’ve likely enrage members of both camps with this analysis but it’s nevertheless an accurate depiction of both commodities, and, as they each have their own particular advantages and disadvantages, my advice is to buy both. That said, not everyone can afford that advice, so I’ll put it this way: if you’re young and want to “swing for the fences”, buy Bitcoin. If it goes to zero, you have time to recover. No, I don’t think that’s likely, but it’s possible. Quantum computing is a looming hazard and while that’s still a long way off IMO it is just one threat to cryptocurrencies that I don’t take lightly. Neither should you. If you’re older and more conservative, buy gold. It won’t let you down over the long haul.

So that’s my advice, and I’m sticking to it. Hope it helps. Good trading!