Former Wall Street trader and host of the Keiser Report Max Keiser was leading the backlash against the bitcoin (BTC) naysayers this weekend as the bitcoin price passed $11,000.
Using Twitter as a platform, Keiser focused on gold enthusiasts after several claimed that despite its performance, bitcoin was still an inferior bet to the precious metal.
Among them was Peter Schiff, the veteran gold bug who has regularly trashed cryptocurrency both informally and via interviews while ironically also accepting it as payment.
“It doesn't matter how high the price of Bitcoin rises unless you sell. Every buyer must eventually sell to realize any benefit from the rise,” he wrote Saturday.
“But therein lies the problem. Once hodlers decide to cash out, the price collapses, wiping out paper gains before they can be realized!”
Keiser did not accept his words, suggesting Schiff owed bitcoin a debt of gratitude for gold’s own gains. As Cointelegraph reported, a mixture of factors has seen gold make rapid progress in line with bitcoin in recent months.
“Where’s the gratitude, Peter? Bitcoin has given Gold a hard money halo; igniting interest in hard money again, driving the price of Gold higher,” Keiser responded.
In a further Twitter post, he added:
“The (bitcoin) community now has a greater understanding of money and monetary history than the Gold community. This ‘flippining’ is relatively recent, and it explains why Gold Bugs are struggling right now.”
Schiff faced further difficulties when he attempted to disprove bitcoin having intrinsic value. Long a favorite argument, he had touted it as a reason for gold’s superiority as far back as 2011, when he decried the idea of holding what he called “Bitcoms” because of a lack of liquidity.
Bitcoin since mushroomed in value, one commentator noted this week, while gold never broke out of its trading corridor.
“The only demand for Bitcoin comes from speculators,” Schiff further claimed this week, to which analyst Vijay Boyapati replied:
“The vast majority of gold's price is monetary premium, just like Bitcoin. Industrial use does not protect that premium in any way. The premium is based on suitability as a store of value where Bitcoin excels over even gold.”
Boyapati included a comparison of this ‘premium’ in gold, bitcoin and silver.
Yet Schiff was not alone in his lack of faith, with Roy Sebag, founder of precious metals custodian Goldmoney, also claiming bitcoin users did not have an argument over gold.
Schiff’s debate with ‘The Bitcoin Standard’ author, Saifedean Ammous, turned heads when it aired in May, the first in a series of high-stakes encounters for bitcoin proponents.
The coming weeks will see both Warren Buffett and Nouriel Roubini - perhaps the biggest bitcoin naysayers of all - come face to face with cryptocurrency figures.