The poll of former Texas congressman Ron Paul participated by more than 43,000 social media users has shown that the majority of respondents would rather have bitcoin over gold, US Treasury Bond, and the US dollar.
On December 6, Paul ran a survey on Twitter to evaluate the preference of the market and general consumers on various stores of value. Paul provided four choices–Federal Reserve Notes (USD), Gold, Bitcoin, 10 Year US Treasury Bond–to a question which read:
“A wealthy person wants to gift you $10,000. You get to choose in which form you’ll take the gift. But there’s a catch: You must keep the gift in the form that you choose, and you can’t touch it for 10 years. In which form would you take the gift?”
More than 21,900 respondents chose bitcoin over the US dollar, gold, and US Treasury Bond as a better store of value and safe haven asset.
Is Bitcoin the Most Legitimate and Robust Store of Value?
On October 22, at the Money20/20 conference held in Las Vegas, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak stated that bitcoin as a stable store of value is better than gold and the US dollar. He emphasized the finite supply of bitcoin capped at 21 million and the decentralized structure of the cryptocurrencies as the two attributes that enable bitcoin to be the best store of value in the global market.
Wozniak also noted that while the US dollar and gold can be printed or mined indefinitely, there exists a supply of bitcoin which provides a maximum amount of bitcoin that can be produced.
“Gold gets mined and mined and mined. Maybe there’s a finite amount of gold in the world, but Bitcoin is even more mathematical and regulated and nobody can change mathematics,” said Wozniak, commenting on the transparent and peer-to-peer protocol of bitcoin.
In an interview with Fox Business, major US-based electronics retailer Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne also noted that in the long-term, general consumers will switch from the fiat currency system to real money like bitcoin and gold.
Byrne’s prediction of the shift in trend from fiat currencies to bitcoin and gold was accurately depicted by the poll conducted by former Texas congressman Ron Paul, which demonstrated that 90 percent of the 43,000 respondents would rather have bitcoin and gold over the US dollar and 10 Year US Treasury Bond.
“You think that’s a bubble? What do you think that fiat currency you carry around in your purse is? This dollar stuff, it’s just some fiat currency based on the surplus taxing authority of the U.S. Treasury of which I assert there is zero … It’s about time the world switches to real money. Either gold or bitcoin,” said Byrne, noting that fiat currencies have been declining over the past few years.
Public Distances From Banks
General consumers, especially millennials, have started to shift away from the global banking system to fintech applications and cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. As the fraudulent activities and deceptive operations of financial institutions become unravelled in the next few years, the value of decentralized and trustless financial systems will surge rapidly.