Gold guru Peter Schiff declares war on CZ: BTC will eventually drop to zero, "tokenization of gold" is the digital return of currency.

Well-known gold bull Peter Schiff and Binance founder CZ are expected to debate “Bitcoin vs Tokenized Gold” in December. Schiff criticizes Bitcoin for lacking intrinsic value, insisting that gold is the true store of value. This article comes from CounterParty TV, compiled, translated, and written by Odaily Star Daily. (Background: Bitcoin villain Peter Schiff turns? Announces personal BTC reserve, surprisingly receives 0.05 free airdrop) (Background supplement: Bitcoin villain Peter Schiff acknowledges for the first time that BTC is digital gold, but criticizes XRP: Is Ripple strategically significant?) Editor's Note: Do you remember that live broadcast held three hours before the “1011 Great Purge”? The same live channel, the same host, but sitting in front of the camera was CZ, who was talking about meme coins, the BNB ecosystem, and the future of decentralization. Just two weeks later, the host handed the microphone to the other end — Peter Schiff, an economist, a loyal believer in gold, and the most stubborn critic in the crypto circle. One is the “creator of the crypto world,” and the other is the “gravekeeper of traditional finance”; one writes code and white papers, while the other adheres to the gold standard and hard currency. If CZ represents “crypto idealism,” then Schiff embodies “monetary realism.” He humorously remarked at the beginning of the program that he was “dressed in a polo shirt and shorts for the show,” but then used a series of sharp remarks to silence the crypto community: “You can divide nothing into a thousand pieces, but it is still nothing.” “Bitcoin has no intrinsic value; all its value comes from speculation.” “Stablecoins are pegged to the dollar, but the dollar itself is not stable.” Now, this old-school economist, hailed as the “Godfather of Gold,” is preparing for a formal showdown with CZ — the debate topic is “Bitcoin vs Tokenized Gold” (CZ replied after being invited that the debate is tentatively scheduled for early December during Binance Blockchain Week). He revealed that the core of this debate will revolve around the three major functions of money: “Which asset can best satisfy the functions of a medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value?” In Schiff's view, Bitcoin is an illusion for speculators, while “tokenized gold” is the digital return of currency; for CZ, Bitcoin is the underlying consensus of decentralization, a “self-correction of humanity against power.” Thus, this interview is not just a conversation but resembles a “prelude to the debate” between two eras, two beliefs, and two monetary views. Below is the original content of the interview, translated by Odaily Star Daily for smoother reading, with some content omitted. The original text is as follows: Host: I watched many of your interviews, such as in 2007 when you warned of a crisis while the host was laughing, and also when you insisted on a bullish forecast of $5,000 when gold was priced at $1,200, having heated debates with the host. These predictions have ultimately been proven correct. I want to start from here: What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding the crypto community has about gold? Peter Schiff: Many people misunderstand gold because they want to defend Bitcoin. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value — it is not a raw material that can be used to make things, nor is it a consumable item. It is just a digital symbol that you can transfer to someone else, and once they receive it, they can do nothing with it either, only continue to pass it to the next person. Thus, they naively categorize gold into this group, thinking of it as just a “useless rock,” valuable only because people “believe it has value.” They conclude that since gold can be priced “by belief,” Bitcoin can too. But they overlook the most critical point: gold does have intrinsic value, and it is extremely high. This is the fundamental reason it can serve as money — it is a scarce and precious physical commodity. Gold excels over other commodities and can be used as money for a long time because it possesses a series of unique properties: divisibility, fungibility, durability, and portability. Bitcoin does mimic these properties of gold, but it lacks the most essential point — actual value. Without this, everything else is just talk. You can slice “nothing” into countless pieces, but it is still “nothing.” Gold can be divided because it is inherently valuable material. From a chemistry perspective, gold is one of the most useful metals on Earth. It is not more widely used in industry because it is too expensive and too scarce — and this precisely constitutes its value. Gold is used in many fields: the most intuitive is jewelry, although you can also make ornaments from other metals, people prefer gold. In addition, it is applied in electronics, aerospace, medical, dental, and many other industries. Another important use is as currency. Gold serves as a store of value because it does not corrode and does not wear out. You can bury a gold coin for five hundred years, and when you dig it up, it will still shine as new, with no loss of value. This means that gold can store wealth across time and can still be used in the future. Bitcoin, however, is not like that. Today, no one “needs” Bitcoin, and no one will in the future. It cannot store value because it has no value to be stored. It does have some technical innovations, but those are just technical features. There are now thousands of cryptocurrencies, each claiming to be “unique,” but none have real use or intrinsic value. Moreover, new coins can continue to be issued, and even the so-called “scarcity” no longer exists. The entire cryptocurrency market is essentially a huge bubble. The early entrants made money — they held coins early on and cashed out at high prices when the bubble inflated. Those profits ultimately came from the losses of later entrants. This is its operating mechanism: early entrants get rich, while later entrants catch a falling knife. Host: You seem to understand the concept of Bitcoin quite well. But conversely, do you reflect on your prediction of “drop to zero” in 2017 as a misjudgment? Peter Schiff: I still believe that Bitcoin will eventually drop to zero, so I don't think I “misjudged.” But I admit that I underestimated the public's gullibility and the marketing genius of Bitcoin promoters. Early participants in Bitcoin were extremely successful in market promotion — they built an engaging “narrative” that made people willingly buy what they wanted to sell. It can be said that this is a large-scale “pump and dump” game. Those early holders — the so-called “OG” or “whales” — hold a large number of Bitcoins, creating a market from scratch, convincing the public that this thing has value, thereby driving up the price, allowing themselves to cash out at high levels. In my view, the market trends of the past few years have actually been a continuation of this dumping process. Especially after the launch of Bitcoin spot ETF and after Trump won the election, I believe the crypto industry actively participated in promoting Trump's victory during that time, one of the purposes being to continue the “pump” and create a larger exit space for early funds. Indeed, many people made money during that wave. But that is also why Bitcoin's price is stagnant now. After surging above $100,000, it has long been sideways, with no new high points. When priced in gold, Bitcoin has actually fallen by about 30% — the ratio of Bitcoin to gold has decreased from 1:26 to 1:8. From the perspective of gold, it has already entered a bear market.