The gold versus Bitcoin debate is complex, nuanced and still in its embryonic stages when put into the perspective of gold’s known 2,700-year use as money versus Bitcoin’s very modest eight-year track record.
From a pure investment perspective, as the following Bloomberg chart shows, Bitcoin has obviously “wiped the floor” with its esteemed rival and, no doubt, has absorbed a considerable volume of funds that otherwise might have found their way into gold investments.
One subset of gold investors, which is both over-stated and over-ridiculed in the mainstream media, is the “preppers”, or those preparing for a catastrophic disaster to occur in the future by stockpiling food, ammunition and “durable” methods of storing their wealth, etc. We clarify the term “preppers” because it is not common parlance in many European countries. While some allocation in gold was basically “de rigeur” some years ago, the prepping community is increasingly turning to Bitcoin, as Bloomberg reports.
Wendy McElroy is ready for most doomsday scenarios: a one-year supply of nonperishable food is stacked in a cellar at her farm in rural Ontario. Her blueprint for survival also depends upon working internet: part of her money, assuming she needs some after civilization collapses, is in bitcoin. Across the North American countryside, preppers like McElroy are storing more and more of their wealth in invisible wallets in cyberspace instead of stockpiling gold bars and coins in their bunkers and basement safes. They won’t be able to access their virtual cash the moment a catastrophe knocks out the power grid or the web, but that hasn’t dissuaded them. Even staunch survivalists are convinced bitcoin will endure economic collapse, global pandemic, climate change catastrophes and nuclear war.
“I consider bitcoin to be a currency on the same level as gold,” McElroy, who lives on the farm with her husband, said by email. “It allows individuals to become self-bankers. When I fully understood the concepts and their significance, bitcoin became a fascination.”
Wendy McElroy’s profile, for what it’s worth, is not exactly that of a “whacko” prepper. A former journalist with FOX News, McElroy might be described as an “anarcho-capitalist”. She has authored a dozen books and numerous articles on subjects such as voluntarism (all forms of human association should be voluntary), feminism, how pornography can benefit women, capitalism and defending Wikileaks. In an article “Would Bitcoin ‘Function’ in a Societal Collapse?” on bitcoin.com, McElroy cited the growth in Bitcoin adoption in the midst of the collapse of Venezuela’s economy and its currency.
