ah enough about Bitcoin all you're doing
is losing people's money why do you want
people invested in gold and not make any
money the only people who make money out
of Bitcoin are those few people at the
beginning everyone else is not making
money right now 92 of people that have
invested in Bitcoin have made money at
the current market prices you're just
saying for people to invest in Bitcoin
because you're one of the early people
you're getting people to invest so you
can make money
hi my name is Sophia and I'm welcoming
you to the second episode of mass
debates
[Applause]
[Music]
today we have a very interesting topic
to debate Bitcoin versus gold what is
better what is safer and what should you
invest in on my left I have Rockwell
Shaw
[Music]
[Applause]
hi I'm Rockwell Shah co-founder of
invisible College a web 3 University and
I believe Bitcoin is a much better asset
than gold and on my right I have Alex
duet defending gold
[Music]
foreign
hi everyone I'm Alex I own gold and I
believe gold is here to stay the
structure of the debate is fairly simple
both Rockwell and Alex have 30 seconds
to defend their arguments and our
audience can either
if they agree with their statements or
boo if they disagree with their
statements now Rockwell you may open the
debate
Alex I gotta be honest with you I have
no idea why we're having this debate if
you look at a price appreciation of
Bitcoin versus gold over the last 10
years Bitcoin has appreciated over 700
000 where gold is appreciated 15
and on top of that if you actually look
at the market caps like the total value
of each market the gold market cap is
over 12 trillion dollars but the Bitcoin
market cap is like 600 700 billion
dollars when you think about how much
more room Bitcoin has to grow it's a no
contest
okay Rockwell but you're missing one
very important point over time gold has
appreciated the price of gold was 300 in
2001. the price of gold today is one
thousand eight hundred dollars so
actually if you look at it if you'd held
on to Gold you would have made eight
percent every single year that's a
really really good return
oh
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you know most people think that gold is
slow and steady but you can see that
most of gold's price is actually
speculation do you know what the year
1730 and the year 2010 have in common
the price of gold did not change if you
invested a hundred dollars in 1730 you
would still have a hundred dollars 280
years later if you actually invested in
the stock market and got index based
returns eight percent per year like
you're talking about after 280 years
you'd have over four billion dollars
four billion dollars
before you kill each other I'm gonna
take a little bit of a break
and then tell you about this guy
Rockwell actually is the newest teacher
on us Academy and he's teaching
something incredible can you guess he's
teaching Bitcoin he's teaching a master
class on how to understand Bitcoin
probably the most comprehensive class on
Bitcoin in the world bitcoin's price is
very volatile it can have very bad days
it can have very good days if you're
gonna be a Bitcoin investor you need to
stay strong even during the very bad
days remember your long-term investor so
huddle and also he's teaching you how
not to get screwed in crypto 101. do you
want to tell them about a class
absolutely so in the Bitcoin master
class we're going to teach you about
this transformational technology that's
happening really if you want to get
involved in Bitcoin if you want to
invest in cryptocurrency you need to
know how to do it safely you need to
know how to do it thoughtfully you need
to know what percentage of your
portfolio should you be putting in where
should you be buying it how should you
be storing it we're going to teach you
all of that and more and remember this
is not a class actually right this is a
community so if I take your class I will
be surrounded with like hundreds of
other people that also want to
understand Bitcoin also and understand
crypto and we've become part of your
community correct absolutely we're here
to support you you're here to support
we're here to support we're here to
support well that's cool okay the class
is available right here on this link all
right back to the debate so Rocco what I
think this debate is actually about
whether you're about stability or
volatility gold has proven to stand the
test of time in fact gold was first used
in 4 thousand BC the ancient Greeks used
it the Romans used it the Italians used
it and we still use it today so gold has
proven to stand the test of time Bitcoin
has stood the test of time of 13 years
it hasn't even been through a major
recession yet gold is the one that I
would bet for the long term and I think
gold is the one that everyone listening
will bet on for the long term
[Applause]
I'm glad you brought up gold history
because gold has a really long history
of doing nothing so if you like not
making any money on your money if you
like having the same amount of money
today as you will 10 years from now
invest in gold I think that's a great
idea but if you actually want to make
Returns on your investment as most
investors do then gold is a terrible
asset class and it has a very long
history of demonstrating
[Applause]
so Rockwell this is where I think you're
wrong because when people look at
investing they also look at preserving
what they own not just about growing
what they own when it comes to any
recession over the course of the last
200 years there is a common thing that
everyone has done they have taken their
money and they've put it in gold gold
provides a stability that the everyday
person needs in order to preserve their
wealth and to preserve you know their
life just focusing on long-term returns
is not what every day you need to pay
your bills you need that money available
to you to use
[Applause]
so it's interesting you talk about
long-term stability if they pull up the
graph of the gold prices you'll see
major drops in the prices multiple times
including in the 80s and the 2000s and
so how can you say that there's
long-term stability when you see 80
price depreciation over these time
periods in fact if you bought gold in
the early 1980s you still haven't made
any money and frankly if you want
something safe and you want something
secure just by inflation-adjusted
government bonds which is what most
rational well-versed investors do
foreign
let's talk a little bit about what
Bitcoin was created to do Bitcoin was
created to be a currency but we don't
see it being used as a currency today
interestingly gold has been used as a
currency it has been used for many many
other things as well it's used for
jewelry it's used for electronics you
know there are so many things that gold
can be used for I can't see the things
that Bitcoin are being used for yeah
that's funny you say that because I just
saw a headline where we send 100 million
dollars to Ukraine to help fight the war
through cryptocurrency including Bitcoin
so one of the things that's amazing
about Bitcoin is it travels across the
world in an instant now I understand
your point it's not a currency yet but
over the next 100 years as Bitcoin grows
and plateaus and gets a stable price
eventually it could become a currency
until then enjoy the price appreciation
[Music]
so Robo there's one point you're not
mentioning about Bitcoin which is it's
amazing that you can send Bitcoin across
borders and help people but the truth is
today you cannot withdraw Bitcoin in
large amounts in fact a lot of places a
lot of crypto exchanges only let you
withdraw up to fifty thousand dollars by
the way the price of Bitcoin was higher
than fifty thousand dollars so that
means at some point you can't even
withdraw one Bitcoin so what's the point
of transferring all this money around
the world if you can't even draw it out
and use it
thank you
it said like somebody who's actually
never transacted a cryptocurrency before
as somebody who routinely does I can
tell you centralized exchanges
definitely let you withdraw more than
fifty thousand dollars not all of us
have fifty thousand dollars a day to
withdraw from our bank account and I
think that's one of the really important
points you know when I think when people
sit down today and think about Bitcoin
or gold what they're thinking about is
what do I have access to today and I
think today the challenge is if I want
to start investing in Bitcoin there are
many different Hoops that I need to go
down in order to start gold today I can
walk to my bank and have an ability to
start investing in gold
foreign do you still walk into your bank
what are you a boomer
unbelievable I think it's quite clear
if you want to invest in assets of any
kind whether it's gold or stocks or
cryptocurrency there are many ways to do
that
so five Robin Hood coinbase there's lots
of places that you can go within a
couple of minutes set up an account and
buy these Assets in terms of ease of use
and in terms of your your accessibility
to them they're all equivalent at this
point so Rockwell you talk about all
these different apps
but how many people actually use them
how many people actually even heard of
them at this stage you know I think when
it comes down to many many people today
they rely on one to two apps to do
everything right when it comes to their
money and so the concept of just
starting with all these apps they don't
know they don't trust is a big step and
I think many people are not ready to do
that yet you've never heard of PayPal
like seriously you might actually be a
boomer I mean
there's there's so many apps it's so
accessible in fact over 50 million
Americans transact with cryptocurrency
today globally we're talking about
hundreds of millions of users actually
have access and use crypto today so one
of the important things when it comes to
investing for me and I think for many
others is around safety you know when I
think about investing my money I want to
ensure that it's somewhere trustworthy
that I have a fullback that it's
reliable and I think what gold has been
able to show is that it has regulation
around it if someone's a broker in gold
or a Trader in Gold they have a whole
system of how they should behave Bitcoin
they do not yet necessarily have
a system in place to hold people
accountable and I don't know about you
but I want to be able to know that I
have a system that I can trust
[Applause]
it's funny the things that you're saying
I'm not quite sure that you've
researched them fully a hundred percent
many of the gold ETFs are unregulated
you don't actually know that there are
gold bars somewhere in some Vault
backing up what the ETF audit actually
says additionally when you're talking
about centralized exchanges like
coinbase coinbase is a highly regulated
company they have to have all sorts of
licenses to operate they have to work
with the SEC actively all the time when
you're talking about safety when you're
talking about security many of the
centralized exchanges are far better
regulated than these gold ETFs that you
might be investing in so Rockwell
um who founded Bitcoin
so Alex
who founded gold
so the fact is that gold physically
exists gold is here in the world and we
can actually find gold right with
Bitcoin
we have claims that someone created it
but no one is quite sure who that person
is we don't know the ethics of that
person
we don't know whether there was you know
another agenda and we don't know whether
those people who have essentially
accumulated well through Bitcoin may
have other purposes or other things that
they do there is no visibility at all
over this the beautiful thing about
Bitcoin is that it stands on its own it
doesn't need a Founder the code is open
source it's auditable and that's the
point that if we want to live in a world
that is more decentralized we need a
system that's not reliant on a human
being or a set of human beings it
doesn't really matter what the ethics or
who this person was what matters is what
the code enables all of the use cases
that's building a new money a new
digital decentralized money that's
tamper-proof from centralized control
so one point we need to talk about when
it comes to bitcoin and it comes to gold
is the number of scams that get reported
day after day after day you read about
someone getting scammed you read about
people losing all their savings there is
no accountability with Bitcoin when it
comes to scams and that is a reason why
people need to be careful about Bitcoin
that's the reason why established ways
to invest have been able to eliminate a
lot of this fraud a lot of these scams
why should anyone invest in Bitcoin when
there's so many scams going on buying
and holding Bitcoin is an incredibly
safe activity but just like any
technology there's many sides to this I
get phone calls almost every day about
some expired warranty from my car that I
don't have right scams are prevalent in
all areas of our society not just
cryptocurrency unfortunately it seems
like you've been brainwashed by
headlines and sensationalist news media
yes there are scams in crypto but there
are scams everywhere and yes you can 100
invest in crypto and be safe so I think
one one point Rocco we're not talking
about is the impact of Bitcoin on the
environment you know today when we
reimagine things we think about how we
can do things that are better for the
environment not worse but we can see the
carbon footprint of Bitcoin we can see
that Bitcoin mining hurts the
environment so why do you want to
contribute to more environmental damage
rather than trying to improve the
environment so one of the Fantastic
things about Bitcoin is that over half
of the energy used to mine Bitcoin comes
from renewable energy sources in fact
they're building it in areas that
oftentimes are remote Villages or places
where you wouldn't necessarily see this
infrastructure and one day many years
from now past the year 2040 when all the
Bitcoin mining stops that infrastructure
will remain and can be repurposed to
build local community energy resources
and frankly contribute to the energy
pipeline of the world
wow that was an intense debate now
before we let the audience vote I would
like to hear your closing arguments Alex
so today we've had good points from both
sides and I think from my perspective
it's not saying you can't invest in
Bitcoin or you can't invest in gold I
think what you really need to decide is
this
am I for stability
or am I for volatility I think day to
day when I live my life
I want more stability in the money that
I have and that's what gold and other
assets similar to Gold bring that is why
I recommend that you vote for gold thank
you Alex Rockwell so I definitely agree
that when you're investing you should
have goals and if your goal is stability
I mean you could take a look at the goal
graph it's not stable in terms of price
but if you're investing to make money if
you're investing for growth think about
taking a portion of your portfolio and
investing in Bitcoin now I think some of
the things that we learned today have
really dispelled a lot of the myths most
of this stuff is not like what you read
in the headlines and I'm really happy
that we've been able to actually hash
this out today and really present the
truth to you all and now it's time for
the audience to vote oh damn oh no oh
damn a bunch of old grandpas in the
audience Pumas Boomer Town boom Oh it's
getting close people that believe in the
future you see the people who believe in
the future
Common Sense will prevail
oh my God this is a morning
and we have a winner and it is Bitcoin
[Applause]
this is the end of the debate but we
would like you to continue it in the
comments section down below what do you
think gold or Bitcoin
[Music]