Monday, December 21, 2020

Silver versus Bitcoin?

Before beginning, just know I use lots of run on sentences so the thoughts may be hard to follow.

I wanted to spark up a debate. I've been a long time believer in silver due to a number of reasons. It's industrial usage, the pairing to gold throughout history as a store of value and hedge against inflationary government fiat currencies, it's physical verifiable nature and durability, and a variety of other things.

I believe in bitcoin for a number of the same reasons. I hold silver, bitcoin, and just a teeny bit of gold. Recently with the rise in prices of both, I'm contemplating selling much of my numismatic coins for more Bitcoin. Silver is excellent, I love the appearance and feeling and physical nature of it. However it also has many drawbacks. It's extremely cumbersome to own and transport. I frequently have nightmares of someone breaking in and stealing my silver coins, and while they are relatively secure the fear still exists. Bitcoin is much easier to secure in my opinion, especially with the use of multi-sig. Silver is extremely difficult to transport and it's super heavy in bulk quantities and subject to seizure and theft. It's also very obvious you have something you're transporting, whereas with bitcoin that's not necessarily the case. The fear of being unable to verify the current supply of silver not only on our earth, but in the known universe, is horrifying. With the rapid advancements in space exploration as well as technology here on earth I fear that silver will be as plentiful as sand like the winklevoss twins discussed. I also fear that even though the perth mint claims they won't make any more of these rare numismatic coins that there isn't much stopping them from doing so anyway (other than a reputation hit) and crushing the numismatic value.

Silver would have great benefit in a true shit hits the fan scenario. In an apocalyptic event where bitcoin is unusable because of an EMP blast, destruction of the internet, or destruction of electricity (there are things like the blockstream satellite and ability to transmit over radio waves but I'm discussing a reality where btc is COMPLETELY gone), I can see silver becoming the new bartering tool alongside consumables. That is the only scenario I can see silver being a better inflation hedge than bitcoin.

Honestly though if we enter a reality where we are essentially forced back into the dark ages for a few generations and it's a constant fight for survival and we don't have electricity or the internet, I'm not sure survival is worth the constant grind and I probably wouldn't want to continue surviving anyway.

I am not going to sell all of my silver, but I think I would like to convert 70-80% into bitcoin. Any benefits to silver over bitcoin that I missed?


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