Friday night’s ZeroHedge Debate explored which is the superior asset: Gold or Bitcoin.
Arguing in favor of Gold were investor Peter Schiff and NYU economist Nouriel Roubini, who went toe-to-toe with crypto proponents Erik Voorhees, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and wealth manager Anthony Scaramucci.
Schiff made the case that Bitcoin cannot be a viable currency because “money needs to be a commodity” and that Bitcoin has no inherent value.
“It’s not just a unit of account and a medium of exchange. It needs to be a store of value,” he added.
“[Bitcoin] is no more ‘digital gold’ than if I create an image of a hamburger on a computer screen. That’s not digital food.”
Does Bitcoin’s transferability give it value?
Voorhees argued that Bitcoin’s ability to seamlessly cross borders is an example of inherent value.
“I can send $1 million to Europe in five minutes from my phone.”
As things heated up, Roubini echoed Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), suggesting that crypto could be exchanged between a “criminal and a terrorist” and that Bitcoin’s transferability allows for the subversion of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) laws.
He blasted Voorhees for being too idealistic.
“Live in your Libertarian cave! That’s not the world we live in.”
Voorhees then gave his best impression of Socrates, attempting to dissect Roubini’s argument that Bitcoin is not "decentralized."
Roubini, meanwhile, made the case that Bitcoin mining is controlled by an oligopoly, and that "The Gini coefficient of Bitcoin is worse than North Korea," - a point he's made in the past, suggesting that Bitcoin contributes to income inequality, rather than reducing it.
One topic the panelists agreed on: inflation is crushing the work class.
According to Schiff, “there’s only one source of inflation and that’s government.”
So, who do you think won?
If you would like to protect yourself from rising inflation, consider checking out this debate's sponsors: Preserve Gold and Bitlayer Labs. ZeroHedge would like to offer a special thank you to each of them for helping to facilitate free speech and open debate.
