Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin Says Crypto is Better Than Gold – Here’s What You Need to Know

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin continues to preach the crypto gospel, declaring that cryptocurrencies are a better option to store wealth and carry out transactions than gold. 

“Gold is incredibly inconvenient. It’s difficult to use, particularly when transacting with untrusted parties. It doesn’t support safe storage options like multisig. At this point, gold has less adoption than crypto, so crypto is the better bet,” the blockchain developer tweeted.

Buterin was replying to a tweet by author Zack Weinersmith who said that the only argument he has heard about crypto which “makes sense within the believer’s own framework is that they don’t want a centralized authority for money. In that framework though, why not just go with gold?”

The entrepreneur’s statement in cryptocurrencies’ defense has triggered predominantly positive reactions from the crypto Twitter. 

“I agree with @VitalikButerin that Bitcoin and crypto is where we need to go especially for the corporate world, internet money and international payments,” said user Darth Crypto. 

At the same time, some Twitter users used the resulting discussion to disagree with Buterin. 

“Ethereum is incredibly inconvenient. It’s difficult to use, particularly when transacting. It can’t be made into a water bottle like stainless steel. At this point, Ethereum has less adoption and a lower market cap than stainless steel, so stainless steel is the better bet,” declared user Levraham Spreadsmith. 

With gold proponents flocking to the debate, a number of crypto users joined in to weigh in on the discussion. 

“Gold has the advantage of not being a pre-mined scheme where a few parties hold the majority of the world supply and could get control over the transactions worldwide,” user GoldenKnight contributed to the online exchange in gold’s favor. 

In response, User frogster defended crypto’s superiority over the precious metal by stating that “gold literally is a pre-mined scheme with few parties holding the majority of the world’s supply AND already controlling the transactions worldwide”.

Last month, Buterin joined the race for this year’s crypto-related bestseller with the release of Proof of Stake, a compilation of his writings from the past 10 years. The title was released as both a physical and digital book on 27 September. The author declared that his entire share of the proceeds from the book will be used to support open-source public goods via Gitcoin Grants.