The Coming Debate: Bitcoin vs. Tokenized Gold
In early December, gold evangelist Peter Schiff and Binance founder CZ will face off in a public debate titled “Bitcoin vs. Tokenized Gold.” The duel will revolve around the three classic functions of money: medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value. Schiff’s thesis is blunt: Bitcoin has no intrinsic value, only speculative momentum, and will ultimately collapse to zero; tokenized gold, on the other hand, is the digital rebirth of hard money.

Bitcoin Is “Divided Nothingness”
Schiff’s opening salvo: “You can slice nothing into a thousand pieces—it’s still nothing.”
To him, Bitcoin’s entire value is circular: people buy it only because they believe someone else will pay more tomorrow. It generates no cash flow, services no industrial need, and cannot be consumed. Its scarcity is artificial—code can always be copied, forks created, new coins launched. Early adopters profit by marketing the narrative; late entrants pay the bill. In short, it is a technologically wrapped Ponzi.

Gold Has Real Scarcity and Real Uses
Gold, Schiff argues, is the opposite: a tangible, indestructible commodity with 5,000 years of monetary history. It is desired for jewelry, electronics, aerospace, and medicine. Its stock-to-flow ratio is nature-given, not coder-decided. A Roman aureus buried in 100 AD still glitters today; no private key can be lost, no hard-fork can debase it. In an era of exploding sovereign debt, central banks are once again choosing gold over dollars—an echo of the 1970s flight from paper.

The Dollar Crisis and the Return of Gold
Schiff believes the world is entering “Phase Two” of the collapse of fiat: first the dollar left gold (1971), now the world is leaving the dollar. With U.S. debt past $38 trillion and rising, Washington can repay only by printing, forcing a vicious cycle of higher inflation, higher bond yields, and an even heavier debt load. When confidence finally snaps, the dollar will plummet and gold—measured in fiat—will race to $10,000, $15,000, even $20,000. The 2008 crisis, he warns, will look like “a Sunday-school picnic.”

How to Prepare: Physical Silver, Canned Goods, Dividend Stocks
For the average person, Schiff recommends:

1. A core position in physical silver (cheaper per unit than gold, easier to barter).

2. A six-to-twelve-month stockpile of non-perishable essentials—toiletries, food, medicine—before price controls or shortages arrive.

3. A portfolio of dividend-paying foreign equities and gold-mining shares to outrun dollar depreciation.
   Bitcoin? “It will buy less toothpaste next year than it does today,” he scoffs.

Blockchain? Useful Only for Tokenizing Gold
NFTs, DeFi, prediction markets—Schiff deems them solutions in search of problems. The one legitimate use he concedes is issuing digital tokens fully backed by vaulted gold, redeemable on demand. His own firm, SchiffGold, is building an app that lets users transfer grams of vaulted bullion instantly, swipe a debit card, and settle in metal. “The best stablecoin isn’t pegged to the dollar—it’s pegged to gold.”

The 2008 Playbook vs. Today’s Trap
In 2008 the Fed could still print and bail; today the “risk-free” asset—Treasuries—is the bubble. If foreigners dump $8 trillion of U.S. debt, Washington’s only choices are outright default or hyper-inflation. Schiff has seen the rehearsal: gold’s spike to $4,400 last week, the 30% collapse in crypto-adjacent stocks, the 70% plunge in Trump Media since October. “The curtain is already falling,” he says; “most just haven’t noticed the lights dimming.”

“I Missed the Trade, Not the Truth”
Acknowledging that a third of a Bitcoin—gifted to him years ago and now locked in a forgotten wallet—has outperformed his gold, Schiff shrugs: “Being right and making money are two different things.” Early buyers of Bitcoin were simply earlier in the Ponzi; late entrants will be the bag-holders. When the music stops, the coins with no cash flows, no collateral, and no industrial bid will converge to their intrinsic value: zero.

Epilogue: Two Faiths, One Future
CZ champions code as the new constitution; Schiff preaches the eternal physics of scarce atoms. On stage in December they will argue whether the future belongs to encrypted private keys or to audited vaults of gleaming metal. For Schiff, the verdict is pre-written: “Illusions vanish; gold endures.”

The Coming Debate: Bitcoin vs. Tokenized Gold
In early December, gold evangelist Peter Schiff and Binance founder CZ will face off in a public debate titled “Bitcoin vs. Tokenized Gold.” The duel will revolve around the three classic functions of money: medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value. Schiff’s thesis is blunt: Bitcoin has no intrinsic value, only speculative momentum, and will ultimately collapse to zero; tokenized gold, on the other hand, is the digital rebirth of hard money.

Bitcoin Is “Divided Nothingness”
Schiff’s opening salvo: “You can slice nothing into a thousand pieces—it’s still nothing.”
To him, Bitcoin’s entire value is circular: people buy it only because they believe someone else will pay more tomorrow. It generates no cash flow, services no industrial need, and cannot be consumed. Its scarcity is artificial—code can always be copied, forks created, new coins launched. Early adopters profit by marketing the narrative; late entrants pay the bill. In short, it is a technologically wrapped Ponzi.

Gold Has Real Scarcity and Real Uses
Gold, Schiff argues, is the opposite: a tangible, indestructible commodity with 5,000 years of monetary history. It is desired for jewelry, electronics, aerospace, and medicine. Its stock-to-flow ratio is nature-given, not coder-decided. A Roman aureus buried in 100 AD still glitters today; no private key can be lost, no hard-fork can debase it. In an era of exploding sovereign debt, central banks are once again choosing gold over dollars—an echo of the 1970s flight from paper.

The Dollar Crisis and the Return of Gold
Schiff believes the world is entering “Phase Two” of the collapse of fiat: first the dollar left gold (1971), now the world is leaving the dollar. With U.S. debt past $38 trillion and rising, Washington can repay only by printing, forcing a vicious cycle of higher inflation, higher bond yields, and an even heavier debt load. When confidence finally snaps, the dollar will plummet and gold—measured in fiat—will race to $10,000, $15,000, even $20,000. The 2008 crisis, he warns, will look like “a Sunday-school picnic.”

How to Prepare: Physical Silver, Canned Goods, Dividend Stocks
For the average person, Schiff recommends:

1. A core position in physical silver (cheaper per unit than gold, easier to barter).

2. A six-to-twelve-month stockpile of non-perishable essentials—toiletries, food, medicine—before price controls or shortages arrive.

3. A portfolio of dividend-paying foreign equities and gold-mining shares to outrun dollar depreciation.
   Bitcoin? “It will buy less toothpaste next year than it does today,” he scoffs.

Blockchain? Useful Only for Tokenizing Gold
NFTs, DeFi, prediction markets—Schiff deems them solutions in search of problems. The one legitimate use he concedes is issuing digital tokens fully backed by vaulted gold, redeemable on demand. His own firm, SchiffGold, is building an app that lets users transfer grams of vaulted bullion instantly, swipe a debit card, and settle in metal. “The best stablecoin isn’t pegged to the dollar—it’s pegged to gold.”

The 2008 Playbook vs. Today’s Trap
In 2008 the Fed could still print and bail; today the “risk-free” asset—Treasuries—is the bubble. If foreigners dump $8 trillion of U.S. debt, Washington’s only choices are outright default or hyper-inflation. Schiff has seen the rehearsal: gold’s spike to $4,400 last week, the 30% collapse in crypto-adjacent stocks, the 70% plunge in Trump Media since October. “The curtain is already falling,” he says; “most just haven’t noticed the lights dimming.”

“I Missed the Trade, Not the Truth”
Acknowledging that a third of a Bitcoin—gifted to him years ago and now locked in a forgotten wallet—has outperformed his gold, Schiff shrugs: “Being right and making money are two different things.” Early buyers of Bitcoin were simply earlier in the Ponzi; late entrants will be the bag-holders. When the music stops, the coins with no cash flows, no collateral, and no industrial bid will converge to their intrinsic value: zero.

Epilogue: Two Faiths, One Future
CZ champions code as the new constitution; Schiff preaches the eternal physics of scarce atoms. On stage in December they will argue whether the future belongs to encrypted private keys or to audited vaults of gleaming metal. For Schiff, the verdict is pre-written: “Illusions vanish; gold endures.”