Not long after one of the most important events in the cryptocurrency industry – the Bitcoin (BTC) halving – took place, American economist and gold enthusiast Peter Schiff continued to criticize the flagship decentralized finance (DeFi) asset’s ability to function as a digital currency.
As it happens, Schiff said that the “cost to complete a Bitcoin transaction is now $128, and it takes a half hour to process,” later adding that this period had increased to “over an hour,” making the maiden crypto asset unsuitable to act as a digital currency and a “failure,” in his X post on April 22.
Schiff’s Bitcoin vs. gold argument
Although some of the commenters highlighted that it would cost much more (not to mention longer) to ship “even 1lb” of Schiff’s favorite precious metal “around the world in a secure manner,” the economist rebuffed the argument as “irrelevant” as “people aren’t using gold as a currency right now.”
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However, he added that tokenizing gold on a blockchain was possible, asserting that, in such a case, “transaction time would be almost instantaneous and cost minimal,” as he argued that “gold works much better on a block chain,” to which the crypto community reacted with dismay.
As a reminder, Schiff has earlier also slammed Bitcoin’s status as a safe haven amid the increasingly complicated geopolitical situation around the world, comparing its performance to that of gold (which he considers superior) and declaring that the “Bitcoin fad is over,” as Finbold reported on April 19.
Schiff’s BTC price prediction
On top of that, the opinionated American economist had also projected that the largest asset in the crypto market would suffer a “catastrophic crash,” due to the large amounts of BTC entering into spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs), making it more vulnerable as BTC ETF buyers are unlikely to be true believers.
That said, Bitcoin has nonetheless managed to climb back above the $65,000 price market and is currently trading at the price of $65,990, indicating an increase of 1.76% on the day, as it moves to reverse the 1.02% loss from across the past week and accumulating a 2.45% gain on its monthly chart.
Ultimately, Schiff may or may not be correct in his views, which underscores the significance of doing one’s own research before investing a significant amount of money into any asset, be it cryptocurrencies, stocks, real estate, cattle, or anything else.
Disclaimer: The content on this site should not be considered investment advice. Investing is speculative. When investing, your capital is at risk.
