Bitcoin vs Gold: El Salvador President and Peter Schiff Duke it Out Online

The ongoing debate over the merits of investing in bitcoin or gold has continued over the weekend with El Salvador’s pro-BTC president Nayib Bukele getting into it with gold bug Peter Schiff.

The debate was spawned from the news that El Salvador had yet again bought the dip on Dec 4, expanding the Latin American nation’s Bitcoin treasury by 150 BTC, worth around $7.3 million at the time.

Bitcoin detractor Peter Schiff replied to the tweet stating “There [are] a lot more dips coming. How much taxpayer money do you intend to waste?”

Bukele responded the following day stating “none” because they had already made gains from that last purchase in just 24 hours.

Bitcoin prices fell to a 9-week low of $46,633 on Dec 4 before recovering marginally to trade at $48,592 at the time of press according to CoinGecko.

Gold losses on the year

Nayib Bukele went on to inform Schiff, and his wider audience of Twitter followers, that El Salvador has nearly $80 million worth of gold reserves. He added that it is currently at a loss over the year whereas the same amount of bitcoin would have increased by nearly 160% over the same period.

Bukele jeered,

You know boomer, we have 44,106 oz of gold in our reserves. Worth $79 million, down 0.37% from a year ago. If we had sold it a year ago and bought #Bitcoin, it would now be valued at $204 million.

Not to lose the last word, Schiff responded that Bukele was making a “huge bet” with other people’s money,

Plus you’re still in the red on the #Bitcoin you bought on last week’s dip. You are making a huge bet using other people’s money. It’s not likely to end well for them or you!

Further down in the tweet, it was pointed out that the gold bug was bearish on bitcoin when it traded at around $3,800 this time three years ago.

Comparing the gains

Bitcoin is volatile, that much is common knowledge, but it has trounced gold in terms of gains this year. Even with a 29% correction from its all-time high last month, BTC has still gained 66.5% since the beginning of 2021.

Gold on the other hand has actually declined over the same 11-month period, falling 5.7% from $1,893/oz to $1,784/oz where it currently trades. Gold made solid gains throughout 2019 and the first half of 2020 but turned bearish following its Aug 6, 2020, all-time high of $2,070/oz.

However, smart investors are likely to have a bit of both in their portfolios as both assets provide a hedge against inflationary fiat currencies.