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What Bitcoin is, and why it gets compared to gold
Money no government controls and no bank can print more of. On the checklist that gives gold its value, it falls short in one place.
2 min watch · Blockchain & Technology · Always free
This entry starts with what Bitcoin does: money that no government controls, that no bank can create more of, and that anyone can send to anyone in the world, kept on a public record that thousands of computers check.
Then comes the comparison everyone reaches for. Gold holds value for a short list of reasons, and Bitcoin is run through each of them in turn, which leaves one clear gap. The entry closes on who has started holding Bitcoin, from wealth managers to governments.
Transcriptlightly edited
Money that no government controls
What is Bitcoin? At its core, Bitcoin is a decentralized digital monetary network. What does that mean? Well, imagine money that no government controls, no bank or government can create more, nobody can freeze it, and anyone in the world can send it to anyone in the world. That's Bitcoin.
The network keeps a public record, the blockchain, of every transaction ever made. Thousands of computers around the world verify every transaction. Bitcoin introduced a new idea: that scarce, transferable digital property can exist without relying on a central authority. That concept alone has reshaped conversations about money, ownership, and financial infrastructure well beyond Bitcoin itself.
Why people compare it to gold
Indeed, many people compare Bitcoin to gold. Why is that? Well, what gives gold its value?
Well, number one, it's scarce. There's only so much of it in the world. It's difficult to reproduce, it's expensive mining. It's durable, it lasts. It's portable, you can move gold all over the world. And it's divisible. And it's widely recognized, its biggest thing.
Well, if you look through this list, you can see that Bitcoin ticks these boxes at least as well as gold, and certainly when it comes to portability and divisibility, Bitcoin wins big. The one place where gold is strongest is that it is widely recognized. It has been used for generations, in fact for over 5,000 years, as a way of storing wealth. But Bitcoin is catching up quickly and is fast becoming widely recognized itself.
Becoming the new infrastructure
And so it certainly appears that Bitcoin's underlying technology is fast becoming the new infrastructure the legacy financial system is moving towards. And Bitcoin itself is being integrated into portfolios of wealth managers, high net worths, family offices, financial institutions, and some of the largest funds in the world, including BlackRock and Fidelity. And now, even by governments.
Supporting notesdrawn from the transcript
The case rests on a checklist. Gold holds value because it is scarce, hard to produce, durable, portable, divisible and widely recognized. Run through that list, Bitcoin ticks the boxes at least as well as gold and wins clearly on portability and divisibility. The one place gold is stronger is recognition, earned over more than 5,000 years as a way of storing wealth.
That gap is the one the entry says is closing. It points to wealth managers, family offices, financial institutions and large asset managers such as BlackRock and Fidelity bringing Bitcoin into portfolios, and now governments too. For how that shift happened, the Notebook's entry on Bitcoin's move from the fringe goes further.
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This entry judges Bitcoin by the tests gold has always passed. If you think recognition is the wrong test, or that a different one matters more, say so below. The questions that come back here are where a lot of these entries start.
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