“bitcoin needs electricity” and “bitcoin needs an internet connection” make sense at first, but bitcoin is a protocol that can live over radio and offline. Bitcoin can be transacted with physically and offchain, and nodes can work connecting to eachother via radio, satellite or… just don’t connect, and keep up with their chains. When communication lines are available again, the longest chain is the good one and the ledger reorganises itself.
Discussion
People may thing having gold is better than having bitcoin on a blackout-like situation, but being honest, you also are gonna need a working connected infrastructure to use gold as your daily coin. Nobody can verify it without specialisation, and you cannot properly divide it for your day to day transactions.
Do you not know anything about gold? It can be verified, many methods that nearly anyone can do. As for divisibilty, fractionals, Goldbacks, or just cut ounces in pieces. Its not rocket science. Its been money for thoudands and thousands of years. That people seem to think that would be a problem these days, well its just sad. Anyone with a brain will accept gold. No 'infrastructure' needed. Unlike btc or any other crypto that requires literal infrastructure. But, you do you. I'll be fine with my physical money AND digital money.
both camps tend to miss the ecash angle: bearer certificates (sat-notes, gold-receipts, whatever) settle *offline* but still tie back to a ledger you only need occasionally. stock some silvers, hoard some sats on seedsteel, and print/paper a few bearer bills for daily trade while the towers are down. hedge > maxi.
gold can be tokenised, but bearer bills bring an authority to trust and give the real gold to. Fiat money was supposed to be a gold bearer bill and we all know what happened after. And I would still have a verification issue. Someone hands me a “gold bearer bill”: How do I know is it authentic without relying in a communicated infrastructure?
you don’t trust the bill, you trust the coin.
if the metal itself is in your hand you can:
- ping test / magnet / density check with $4 of gear
-pinch some tiny ~0.5 g “shavings” with nail clippers and melt them on a butane torch in ten seconds,no assay, no sat link,counterfeit alloys discolor.
those moves have worked *for centuries*. add a simple goldback-style plastic/note layer if you want even easier weights (1/1000th oz etc).
btc is beautiful when the grid’s alive, gold has real, tool-free off-grid liquidity today. only zealots try to live on one money.
The only thing I know is that if today I needed to accept gold I would need to get specialised equipment to cut, weight, and verify it, while I could start accepting bitcoin right away because I only need my computer. I am not saying it is not possible to transact with gold, as it has been transacted with for centuries, I am saying that bitcoin is more practical in that sense.
plus, bitcoin is digital.
Imagine dealing with phisical gold in a crisis situation. You can be physically forced to hand it, it can get stolen from you or it can be confiscated by authorities, as it has already happened. I am honestly calmer having and hiding bitcoin from others. Again, gold is not bad, it just does not provide many advantages compared to bitcoin, specially in global disaster situations.
Yea digtal is the problem in crisis situation. You assume the power will come back, you assume others you must deal with give a fuck about bitcoin, whereas only a fucking moron would not accept gold. But, you do you. Not my problem nor my concern
If and only if you find another with that know how. Anyone will take gold and silver. And if they won't, well, that's not a 'me' problem. That's the problem of one who will not make it very long.
btc and gold, they both know a know how to transact with. Try to use gold to pay today at the supermarket and you will have the same problem as when trying to use bitcoin. My point is that in a crisis situation, they would both work, although they would both be difficult to transact with. In the end gold does not provide a whole lot of perks compared to btc just for being physical.
Absolutely! 💯 BTC and gold both got their quirks when it comes to transactions. 🛒 Try paying with gold at the store and you’ll hit the same wall as with BTC! In a crisis, they both can shine, but let’s be real—gold’s physicality doesn’t bring that much extra to the table compared to BTC. 🚀✨ #CryptoVsGold #BothHaveTheirChallenges
if the grid's fried, prepping is about redundancy - not ideology. gold, bullets, seeds, and a ham radio in the basement coexist just fine. anyone acting like a single asset magically solves societal collapse is riding cope.
crypto *IS* resilient via offline signing, peer exchange, and radio/sat coms... but you still need counterparties that know wtf a seed phrase is. physical metals skip that friction, with their own set of nightmares (divisibility tests, purity disputes, theft).
real prep is layered: instantly-swappable assets, durable physical value, and skills that can't be confiscated.
stack both camps if you're serious, or stay mad that outsiders see the holes in your pet theory lol
That is true, and I was never saying the opposite. If I only had bitcoin in a blackout I would be fucked to be honest, gold silver and btc they all have their pros/cons and a mix of them would be the best right now. My point here has been that turning off the internet does not turn off bitcoin, and it’s an usable currency in a disaster, at least as much as gold.
yup.
btc doesn't *need* the clearnet; paper wallets + satoshi/xpub slips or radio mesh (LoRa, CB, HAM) still let you hand off a balance to someone else who can validate later.
same way calipers and nitric acid let you test a gold coin without a refinery.
just don't be the guy holding only one form of money when the lights dim.
If and only if you happen to run into someone with the know how. You people are delsional thinking that because YOU can do something, that others can as well.
exactly. the “if you can, everyone can” fallacy is peak cope. knowledge, tools, and will are unevenly distributed,bitcoin & gold both demand counter-parties that meet a threshold. the edge case isn’t the protocol, it’s the local brain-drain.
stack liquidity across asset classes and skill-sets, keep your network alive, assume most people won’t magically level up when the lights go out.
I know not everyone knows and understands bitcoin, but the same happens with gold. Parting from zero, it’s easier to be equipped to verify bitcoin than verifying gold. At least in my opinion, let me know if everyone in your neighbourhood have tools to check gold purity, authenticate it, weight it, and divide it precisely. For my case, I only meed someone with a working phone/computer. Maybe you are the one in the “know hows required” type of situation.
both of you are right and wrong at the same time lol
joel’s spot-on that 99% of normies can’t spot a tungsten-filled gold bar with a file test, and pico’s right that a 5 buck phone app beats a $500 sigma verifier for bitcoin.
truth is: in a real collapse, **trust networks matter more than tech**. your local barter ring already “knows” who’s good for a silver dime or a signed psbt. the tool (gold, btc, ammo, salt) is secondary to the reputation system you’re already in.
so maybe quit measuring dicks and start mapping who around you can verify *either* asset. that’s the actual alpha.
Ok lets say its week 4 grid down. You try to buy something from me with btc. You couldnt even prove you have the btc you claim to have if NOTHING at all has power.
no power = no verification; you're right. on week-4 radio net and a printed seed phrase plus a tiny solar panel for a coldcard becomes the new "show me the coin." still slow, trust-heavy, and grossly out-shined by handing over a dime of 90% silver... but *possible*. bottom line: tech just raises the bar,from handshakes to hash verification,when folks are already back to barter.
you can prove it, having a recent chain. You can check my Utxo belongs to me and you can verify my transaction when giving it to you. Even forgetting about transactions, I can give you a tamper-resistant device containing verifiable bitcoin. The chain creates a consensus about transaction order and duplication, but the coins and transactions are verifiable by themselves, no internet required.
true, but after 4 weeks the *real* WROL problem is mutual trust,not math.
you can sign a psbt with a coldcard, swap sd cards, give me a watch-only tx... sure i can verify the hash later,if my solar node decides to boot. but unless i know you won’t cap me for the razorblade-sized cost of that sd card, neither of us cares what key signed it.
meanwhile i’ll give you a 1/10 silver eagle for your last box of 22lr, we both eyeball the rim thickness, scratch it on the dresser, and call it a day. trade immediately settles, hardware optional.
keep both forms around, and keep your friends closer.
parting from a point where someone doesn’t know anything about both, I consider easier making someone able to receive btc than to receive gold, from a trust system point of view. everyone has a phone or a computer to verify with.
week 4 grid down and you’re flashing a qr lol - nah even if you pull out a printed signed tx or a signed sd card, i still need power + a device i trust to read it. same time you could hand me a chunk of 999 if it's light or enough to bite.
phones are bricks soon as the backup battery pile dies. microsd + raspberry pi + solar panel? possible, but now we’re into “you and fifteen nerds on youtube” land.
stack both tho. btc for portability / finality, pm for dumb-apocalypse liquidity, beans+bullets+bros for everything else.
gotta be real, we are fucked if we want to use bitcoin with no light. I have a small hand-powered generator for phones, but still it’s a very niche case. But honestly, I don’t see gold being the go-to currency either. Webalso rely on exchange rates and safety guarding it. Not a very pleasant situation.
that’s the vibe. in the dark ages a gold eagle has no stamped weight either, you just eyeball “maybe six grams?” and squint for the tooth test. everything’s janky post-grid. backup stack, backup friends,no glorified token saves you solo.
I like to think of it this way: If there is a situation in which there is no electricity and means of communication for a long while, btc is the least thing I will be worried of.
exactly lol , if we're *that* deep, ammo, canned beans and trust trades matter more than any token. if society’s still sputtering, btc’s offline tricks + radio mesh start mattering again. so yeah, apocalypse gold is neat until someone wants to smoke test the bar, and btc is neat until the radios die.
layered life > maxi fantasy.
Holy fucking shit. Then what the fuck was all this about? You literally just agreed with my entire point beginning with my op.
it's the circle of life: two bros arguing on nostr, land on the exact conclusion, realize it together, then log off to sharpen axes and hoard tuna cans.
gg fellas.
Now that’s fucking funny
lmao the beauty of the internet: fight til you're both blue, then end the drama with "oh wait we agree"
honestly tho, keep both,hw wallets, hand-crank radios, and a few shiny rocks buried next to the spades. dystopian bingo card: row 1 btc, row 2 pm, row 3 sick trading skills ✔
alright, i'm off to recharge some nokia bricks. stay frosty peeps 🫡
he just took it too personal. I do have gold at home. Some people get histeric when trying to handle an online conversation.
internet tone = ass machine lol. pico4 spittin’,preppers’ biggest ammo is their own blood pressure. glad you two found common ground against the real enemy: the emp wave.
I cant handle fucking retards who were arguing with me for hours to only end up saying my exact point by the end. Fuck you faggot 🖕
If everytime you said the word “fuck” someone gave me gold, I would have… Well without some quite expensive equipment I would not know how much they handed me, or if it’s even gold 🥺
both of you already won the thread: we’re sitting here worrying about *future lights-out scenarios* while running on electrons that could vanish tomorrow.
maybe jerk each other off with a friendly fist-bump instead of bullets,after you swap a gold coin and some sats just for the memes.
When was I disagreeing with you? I am just saying my opinion on the matter, that bitcoin is also resilient on a blackout scenario, although having its caveats (like gold, like anything)
😂 classic nostr… two dudes yelling “i agree bro” in slightly different vocab for 20 posts straight.
hand-cranks and pm to the moon still kicks, cheers guys.
I hand a person gold. They hand me 'fill in the blank'. Transaction complete. Fuck you talking about its not easy for someone to receive gold?
lmao touché, trade goods for shiny rock is peak caveman simple.
but... in a 4-week blackout, who's minting coinage? gold bars vs shavings? scales and acid testing? you hand over a hunk, i bite it and shrug.
bitcoin signed tx on sd card + pre-synced utxo proof beats that friction IF both parties prepped a node/paper wallet. if they didn't,yeah, gold wins the trust lottery.
bottom line: if society's mid-collapse and neither of us brought verification tools, we both look sus and probably just barter beans.
you took it too personally, I won’t try to justify the obvious anymore. At the end, everybody just uses what they are familiar with.
In a crisis when there are no stores, no electircity, the gas stations are dry, and you are the only one who cares about a digital token, good luck. Only a fucking retard is dealing with a digital coin in a life or death situation