A Luxury Yacht or a Snickers? Bitcoin Beats Gold in New $1 Comparison

A $1 investment in Bitcoin (BTC) in 2009 would buy a luxury yacht today — but $1 of gold would only buy you a chocolate bar.

That was the result of a comparison from statistician Willy Woo, who unveiled his latest tool this week for tracking the largest cryptocurrency’s success.

BTC gains: $1 becomes $12.8 million

Uploading his findings on Twitter along with his dedicated website, Woobull, Woo highlighted gold’s lackluster returns over the past decade.

Despite both gold and Bitcoin gaining in 2020, Bitcoin remains an easy winner out of macro assets both year to date — and all the more so over multiple years.

“I made a new live chart for gold bugs,” Woo added in lighthearted comments. 

“$1 invested over 10.7 years... Today's value: Bitcoin: $12.8m (a luxury yacht) Gold: $1.66 (a snickers bar).”

Gold in fact netted enough gains for a sweet treat in 2011, before falling and only reapproaching its all-time highs in recent months. 

Bitcoin vs. gold investment chart. Source: Woobull

More than a quick million bucks

The precious metal nonetheless retains its keen supporters, many of whom make a point of rubbishing Bitcoin while plugging gold’s virtues.

As Cointelegraph reported, Peter Schiff is perhaps the most vocal gold bug on social media, while others from the industry have denied that Bitcoin is in any way gold’s digital counterpart.

In a debate late last month, Saifedean Ammous, author of “The Bitcoin Standard,” went head-to-head with Roy Sebag, founder and CEO of Goldmoney. 

Sebag took issue with Ammous’ entire theory of money, even disputing the idea that Bitcoin’s fixed supply will stay at 21 million BTC.

Ammous argued that gold would follow silver in becoming demonetized over time, and it had failed to take advantage of the coronavirus fiat meltdown.

“It was gold’s time to shine, but I think Bitcoin is going to be taking over that shine because you can send Bitcoin across borders,” he summarized.