Peter Schiff On Gold, Silver & Bitcoin

GSBTC: Hello, who are you?

My name is Peter Schiff and I am in the investment business.

GSBTC: What brings you to the California Resource Investment Conference?

Peter: I am a speaker here, and my company Euro Pacific Capital is an exhibitor here, so we’re prospecting and some clients of ours are here so we are saying hello to people.

GSBTC: We are going around trying to gauge people of Bitcoin. Have you heard of it?

Peter: I have heard of Bitcoin. It is an electronic medium of exchange.

GSBTC: How tangible is bitcoin?

Peter: It is not tangible at all, as it exists in cyberspace and so you can’t hold onto it. It’s in a computer somewhere. People are currently using it and I know people are willing to accept bitcoins in the exchange of goods and services. But, who knows what the future will bring. I am rather skeptical about it as a real alternative to the current fiat monetary system. I know we need an alternative monetary system, but I am more of a believer in real money, like gold and silver, not some cyber alternative to paper money. I don’t have faith in paper money, so I’m not also going toput faith into a computer generated money that has no intrinsic value outside of its theoretical scarcity and the fact that people are willing toaccept it, even though it has no value in and of itself whatsoever.

Plus, it’s very new. Gold has a 5,000 year history. Bitcoin has a, what, 2-3 year history? It’s too young to know to put your faith in something like Bitcoin.

GSBTC: Well, its very cutting edge. There’s never been a currency that has ever existed on the network such as Bitcoin.

Peter: But, how do you know it is not like pets.com? It’s a fad and just because people are accepting it today, something could happen, there could be a scandal. I don’t know that I would feel comfortable if I took my life savings and converted it into bitcoins. We’ll see where it is in 10-20 years.

GSBTC: Our argument is it is a tangible source of exchange, because I have it here on my phone, you can have it on yours, and we can exchange instantly.

Peter: But, you don’t need bitcoins to do that. I understand that as long as people are accepting them, then you can do that, but if someone doesn’t want your bitcoins then you’re stuck. It’s like the music stops, and they could end up being like beanie babies. People were collecting them, thought they had a value, but now people use them for insulation for their walls now.