Some people think that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are very similar to gold as they can be considered as stores of value.

Others assert that it is not possible to compare gold to the modern cryptovalues as the first one is archaic and obsolete while the seconds are modern and have none of the problems that gold and physical assets bring to long term investors: the need of a safe place to store, the size of the bar, the difficulties to change and portability among all.

The gold’s detractors are sure that BTC will be the winner compared to real assets.

Maybe all are right and not.

Gold has some practical problems (safety, storage, weight, difficult to bring, …) but it’s value is historically recognized by humans (for several thousands of years) and as cryptocurrencies it is not controlled by a single supervisor as central banks do with fiat currencies. We can state that gold is decentralized, is rare and it is real, it is unpractical but it doesn’t need a virtual infrastructure (the web and the blockchain) to be used as an exchange mean.

Bitcoins, and cryptos in general, are decentralized too, simple to bring and to be exchanged, because they do not exist except as some code and bits of information stored on some computers connected via web.

But I think that these last features could be weakness.

Generally we take for granted the existence of the web: Internet is and will be.

Are we sure? What would happen if some black out switched off the web or an important part of it?