The Bitcoin Halving, Explained
This paragraph neatly sums up the &quot;gold&quot; myths of Bitcoin:<p>&gt; This means that things that are hard to create, and whose creation can’t be faked, have value. Bitcoin, like gold and other precious metals, has both of these properties. Mining Bitcoin requires large amounts of electricity and computational power. In fact, the Bitcoin network uses a similar amount of energy every year as the entire country of Venezuela.<p>Actually a distributed ledger is not the same as a rare metal:<p>1. Unlike gold, Bitcoin can cease to exist. If nobody keeps the blockchain alive, it doesn&#x27;t exist any more. Try to make gold disappear from the ground!<p>2. Unlike gold, the operators can decide to increase supply. Or reduce it. By orders of magnitude. It&#x27;s a code change. Try that with gold.<p>3. Forks are abundant. Good luck trying to invent a new element.<p>4. The economical benefit of Bitcoins is much too small to explain the energy use. It can&#x27;t even keep up with the transaction count of a small town. The energy expenses can only be justified by expected future return. This is actually where Bitcoin is somewhat comparable to gold as a valuable. It&#x27;s just that gold actually has real-world uses besides acting as currency. So we know the price for gold won&#x27;t go to zero. Unless of course we find ways to defy our current physics!