Peter Schiff: Bitcoin is a scam

So a BTC was worth about $1,100, so since then its value has increased by over 5,000%.

In the same period, the price of gold increased by only 149%, thus with a performance more than twenty times lower. 

Despite this, Schiff continues to prefer and support gold, so much so that his hatred towards Bitcoin could be due to the fact that he considers it a competitor to gold itself.

Schiff is the president of SchiffGold, a company that acts as a dealer for those who want to purchase gold. In fact, therefore, by lashing out against Bitcoin, he is also trying to defend his personal interests. 

He made headlines especially when, three years ago, he publicly argued on Twitter with his son, who instead is a supporter of Bitcoin.

The tweet by Michael Saylor

Saylor, on the other hand, is by far the biggest supporter of Bitcoin in the world. 

Thanks to him, the company he founded and directed until recently, MicroStrategy, has purchased a whopping 226,000 BTC, whose current market value exceeds 13 billion dollars.

MicroStrategy has purchased Bitcoin at an average price below $37,000, investing more than $8.3 billion. So far, the unrealized gain is 60%, in just under four years. 

Saylor tweets very often about Bitcoin, and he always does so by effectively promoting it, or at least highlighting its positive aspects. 

So Saylor is not impartial and is in favor of Bitcoin, while Schiff is also not impartial and is against Bitcoin. 

This time Saylor tweeted a video discussing the collapse of the purchasing power of the dollar in the long term, and money printing, as well as the difficulties of the current financial system. He commented by writing “God bless Bitcoin”. 

Peter Schiff’s response: Bitcoin is a scam

Peter Schiff did not like that video at all, and he commented by writing: 

“What a total scam. If it is true that the dollar is flawed, Bitcoin is even more so. If you are worried about the dollar, you can own gold or silver as alternatives. Bitcoin is a fraud.”

So, in fact, he simply promoted gold (and silver) in a comment to a tweet that was promoting Bitcoin. 

But the most curious thing is Pledditor’s comment to his answer. 

Pledditor in fact claims that the company of the same Peter Schiff, SchiffGold, accepts Bitcoin as a means of payment. 

He also shared a screenshot of the official SchiffGold website where you can see the explanation of how to pay in Bitcoin. 

In fact, on the official SchiffGold website, there is a page titled “Buying Gold & Silver with cryptocurrency” where it is explained how to make payments in cryptocurrencies to purchase gold and silver from them. 

At this point, the question that arises is: why would Peter Schiff’s company, which bears his name, accept payments in Bitcoin if he really considered it a scam? 

It should be noted, however, that payments in this case are made through BitPay, which converts BTC into dollars as soon as the payment in Bitcoin is made, so that the company can collect dollars instead of BTC. 

Bitcoin vs. Gold

The battleground between gold and Bitcoin is the preservation of value in the long term. 

It is therefore not a comparison in the order of days, weeks, or months, but in the order of years, or even decades. 

Compared to, for example, ten years ago, not only has Bitcoin preserved its market value, but it has also increased it significantly. 

Taking November 2013 as a reference, when a Bitcoin was worth about $1,100 while an ounce of gold was worth about $950, net of inflation the increase in the value of gold has been less than 100%. In other words, it has less than doubled. 

Instead, in the same period, the price of BTC, net of inflation, increased by a little less than forty times. 

Since Bitcoin was born in 2009, and even from 2009 to 2013 it recorded an incredible percentage increase in value, we can say that so far Bitcoin is hands down beating gold when it comes to long-term value preservation. 

The flip side of the coin is that while gold is a risk-off asset, and a so-called safe haven, the value of Bitcoin is still so volatile that it is considered a risk-on asset and certainly not a safe haven. In light of the facts, however, in the long term it is to be considered, for now, a store of value, even if this seems to apply only in the long term.