Just over one week ago, investor and gold bug Peter Schiff announced that his company, Euro Pacific Precious Metals, would be accepting bitcoin in exchange for gold.
The news made headlines rather quickly, mostly because Schiff has denounced bitcoin, at one point calling it a “modern-day tulip mania.”
It was an interesting turn of events, frankly, but the move doesn’t seem to have had much of an impact on Euro Pacific revenues.
Schiff appeared on business television network CNBC on Thursday and made an interesting revelation: one one person has taken him up on his offer and purchased the metal with digital currency.
“How many bitcoins have you seen come into your shop – have you changed your mind yet?” asked the reporter. “You know, last I checked we only had one person who bought gold with bitcoin,” he responded.
He reminded viewers that his company still accepted dollars, too, despite the fact he isn’t a fan of fiat currency, either. At the end of the day, he says, he still has to pay his rent and salary.
[ot-video type=”youtube” url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSaKf05MGy0&feature=youtu.be&t=4m9s”]
Schiff’s company is working hand-in-hand with BitPay to process the transactions (or should we say ‘transaction’?), and his company isn’t the first of its kind to accepting bitcoin for gold.
Competitors include Coinabul and Agora Commodities, both of whom have not released sales stats.
It raises the question: do bitcoin enthusiasts even find gold worth the buy? Many gold and bitcoin holders have the same distrust in fiat, but both seem relatively content in their personal holdings.
What do you think? Are you surprised that only one person has used bitcoin to buy gold on Schiff’s website?
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Why would I buy gold when I have bitcoin? LOL
It has a huge Advantech if you want to unload your bitcoin in large quantities and don’t trust exchanges to handle those transactions.
I have a scarce industrial metal with countless uses besides a medium of exchange.
You have some bits on a computer which can be replicated to infinity via alternate cryptocurrencies.
Time will tell who is right.
You can create an alternative currency but you can’t replicate bitcoin. Bitcoin has the most consumers, the most shops, the most exchanges, the most developers, the biggest infrastructure, the lowest volatility, the biggest liquidity, the best network effect and the most services around it. That’s why any new person to cryptocoins will choose Bitcoin. After years of competition the market cap of Bitcoin stayed strong and has grown to a market share of 92%. Bitcoin is here to stay for it has more practical uses than gold. Bitcoin is programmable money and its possibilities are limitless.
Bitcoin doesn’t have industrial uses but it doesn’t need to. It’s a great form of money. Is a car valuable? Yes because it takes you places, not because it has secondary uses. The same goes to bitcoin. Bitcoin doesn’t need secondary uses.
What would happen to the price of gold if it wasn’t used as a form of money and a store of value anymore? The price would collapse. Sure it would have a bottom somewhere for the demand as jewelry and from industries but the price would not be anywhere it is now. If you’re heavily invested in gold you should diversify in bitcoin, period.
Not surprised. Buying mined commodities is a waste of time and money. Bitcoin is much easier to buy and use or save. I feel sorry for people and countries that are hoarding gold or silver.
How is bitcoin easier to use? It requires both parties have a computer/smartphone, a bitcoin wallet, and an internet connection. Gold or silver just requires me to give the person the gold or silver in exchange for the goods.
Buying bitcoin requires a person withdraw cash first and then give that cash to a person for bitcoin, since no sane person accepts credit cards due to the counter-party risk.
But having a free economic system means letting people use what they want. I don’t need to bash bitcoin since it will fail on its own. Either by the speculators trying to cash out, when the blockchain grows too large, or when some flaw is found in the encryption.
http://youtu.be/Gc2en3nHxA4
When I visited the site after the announcement it looked like the only way to buy or even get prices was to call them. Seems more designed for retired people instead of the tech savy. I’m surprised they even got one bitcoin sale.
The real question is, how many payments has he accepted in precious metals?
Perhaps it’s signaling what’s more of an value and what is overpriced. Since the gold price fixing by Barkley it is uncertain of commodities true value. At this point no one knows how wide this practice has spread.
There’s a lot of gold selling companies, they are very competitive. Maybe Peter Schiff is ripping people off on gold.
Schiff charges reasonable markups of only a couple percent. Buying local is often better because you don’t have to have the gold shipped, but some local sellers charge crazy markups, so it depends on your location.
Also why would anyone want to give up bitcoin for gold right now? Has he considered buying gold for bitcoin? He might get a far better response.
There is a huge opportunity to get involved with Paccoin. Paccoin is a crypto currency similar to Bitcoin, but has technological advantages and is currently priced very low. Mine thousands of coins per day. This coin is the next big millionaire maker.