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Why Bitcoin is Better Than Gold, with Wences Casares | Big Think

Big Think | December 11, 2025



Why Bitcoin is Better Than Gold, with Wences Casares
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Xapo CEO and founder Wences Casares explains why, after a 5,000 year reign, gold has been surpassed by bitcoin as the ideal ledger.
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WENCES CASARES:

Wences Casares is the founder and CEO of Xapo, bitcoin vault and wallet described by the Wall Street journal as the Fort Know of bitcoin storage.

Prior to founding Xapo, Casares launched Argentina’s first Internet Service Provider, Internet Argentina S.A. in 1994, a company he would go on to sell in order to found the Argentine online brokerage Patagon in 1997. With Casares serving as Chairman and CEO, Patagon established itself as Latin America’s first comprehensive Internet financial services portal and expanded its online banking services to the United States, Spain, and Germany. Patagon was acquired by the Spanish bank, Banco Santander for $750 million in 2000.

Casares founded Wanako Games, which developed the award winning game Assault Heroes honored as “Game of the Year” for Microsoft Xbox Live in 2006, and was later acquired by Activision.

In 2002 Casares along with his partners founded Banco Lemon, a retail bank for the underbanked in Brazil. Banco do Brasil, Brazil’s largest bank, acquired Banco Lemon in June 2009.
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TRANSCRIPT:

Wences Casares: Bitcoin is a new digital currency that is perhaps the best form of money that we have ever seen. It’s important because most of us don’t understand money very well and perhaps the concept that is hardest for us to understand about money is that money is and has always been a ledger. And people often ask: “What is money backed with?” And the truth is money’s not backed with anything. It has never been backed with anything. The euro is not backed with anything in particular and neither is any other currency in the world. And gold, for example for that matter is not backed with anything either.

Some people think that gold has value because we use it for jewelry but it’s actually the other way around. Gold is valuable because it’s very scarce and because it’s very scarce it has been the best ledger we’ve found in 5,000 years. In bitcoin we have something that is as good a ledger as gold, meaning it’s incredibly scarce. There will never be more than 21 million bitcoin. It’s even more scarce than gold.But in history we have had this tradeoff between things that have been very, very good store of value like gold for example and things that have been good for payment like the Portuguese escudo, the U.S. dollar, American Airline miles, or Facebook credits. Those things are better for payment but they’re not so good as a store of value historically. And the things that are good for a store of value like gold are not good for payments.

In bitcoin we have something for the first time that is incredibly superior than anything we have seen before as a store value and also as a form of payment.It’s hard to have a rigorous discussion about bitcoin without understanding money. And the best way to understand money is to understand the history of money. Anthropologists agree that there’s no tribe, much less a civilization, that ever based its commerce on barter. There’s no evidence. Barter never happened. And that’s counterintuitive to most of us because we are taught in school that we first barter and then we made money because barter was too complicated.

Well, barter never happened and that’s one of the key myths about money. So then you would ask the anthropologists, “So how did we do commerce before money if there was no barter? There was no commerce.” No, there was plenty of commerce and the way that commerce would happen is that let’s say that someone in our tribe killed a big buffalo and I would go up to a person and say hey, “Can I have a little bit of meat?” And that person would say “No” or “Yes, Wences, here’s your meat.” And then you would go up to a person and say “Hey, can I have a little bit of meat?” and that person said “Yes, here’s your meat.”And basically we all have to keep track in our heads of what we owed other people or what our people…

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Comments

This post currently has 39 comments.

  5. @natashaphillips4371

    December 11, 2025 at 3:55 am

    As a trade enthusiast who has made lots of money investing with Steve Hendricks, made 31k$ last week putting in 12k$ I will advice y’all get a professional to guide your investments as I can proudly say it’s the best way moving forward

  11. @Rokvtm

    December 11, 2025 at 3:55 am

    Gold is Fiat! And not scarce anymore , I am not crazy.
    Listen carefully
    Because Gold is owned by government central banks, So they will never let the price of gold run high, because it will be a great asset to own , and people will stop saving in local currencies.
    Governments hold gold and sell gold certificates, or as I call it , “fiat gold.” So gold in the market is basically fiat, if the price goes up , they print more certificates,
    On average 1 onz of real gold has more than 7 owners in paper.
    They have destroyed its scarcity nature.
    So gold is basically , a kidnapped asset. It is not interesting to own , it will never be. It will never skyrocket.
    Gold is not democratic and accesible to every one.
    Gold worked in the past , but in the scheme of modern life it is dull boring and and not safe place to store value unless , you want your value depreciated by real asset inflation

  12. @dazecm

    December 11, 2025 at 3:55 am

    I admire Wencase's motivations behind his efforts to make Bitcoin succeed. The financial wellbeing of his family and millions of others being subject to the whims, incompetence and in many cases, outright deceit and corruption of those who work in politics and government is something that needs to be dismantled and Bitcoin seems like it can work. There need to be more people like him with a functioning moral compass that's pointing towards a better system of currency for everyone in the financial world.

  13. @moufirst

    December 11, 2025 at 3:55 am

    Gold is real money and everything else is credit. Bitcoin might go to zero. Can’t make jewelry out of bitcoin. Gold is a status symbol, and when you hold a bar of gold, it gives you a warm feeling.

  14. @Ratzefummell

    December 11, 2025 at 3:55 am

    Investing in Gold or other precious metals has been on for centuries, and this century, we have seen several ways to invest.
    Gold being one of the best investment still need proper understanding so that you won’t just fail or invest at the wrong time.
    2020 taught us that investing smart is the only way to survive, and the coronavirus global pandemic also shown to many that there are many ways to invest profitably.
    I was a fully-fledged gold investor addict before a friend of mine told me of a new goldmine (Bitcoin). Initially, I look at it as something not worth trying. I always warn my friend against it. I told my friend it will crash in 2018, and I never knew bitcoin was meant to transform the economy.
    I was not giving any interest to bitcoin, I talk it off all the time and always talk about investing in other assets, not until the coronavirus global pandemic occurs and crash the global market in March 2020, since then I look for ways to invest in other fast-rising assets, but still, the only asset that seems best to invest in is bitcoin.
    Since the crash in March, it has grown to x2 of the initial price, making it the best performing asset of this new Decade in 2020.
    I did not have much knowledge, so I contacted my friend to help me out, and he referred me to Nyberg Hansson, a professional trader and investor who guided me to my first-ever bitcoin investment. He equally guides me on how to trade cryptocurrencies to make good profit.
    Now I know why my friend called cryptocurrency the new goldmine, and thanks to Nyberg Hansson for helping me invest and trade cryptocurrency effortlessly.
    Now I am looking forward to attaining my target of 100BTC before the year-end.
    The best investment now to make good returns on profit in Bitcoin, and I will urge everyone to participate in it, and get professional help and advice from Nyberg by contacting him through nyberghansson@gmailcom and WhatsApp +447723292381, and surely you will see the effectiveness of bitcoin to the economy.

  16. @Zariston

    December 11, 2025 at 3:55 am

    5 years later … bitcoin has scalability problems, transactions take ages and are expensive, miles away from adoption. For now bitcoin can be digital gold, but not digital money.

  18. @jimhendricks88

    December 11, 2025 at 3:55 am

    The irony is that to mine bitcoin (computers) and to use bitcoin (cellphones/computers), you have to use physical gold. Gold is in every cellphone and every computer; they would use another metal if it was cheaper, but gold must be used in computer and cellphone technology.

  26. @mrdave2112

    December 11, 2025 at 3:55 am

    The dollar is backed with the U.S. military; it is the worlds reserve currency. Any country that refuses to trade with the dollar,  the U.S. bombs them. North Korea and Iran and a couple small countries are the only ones not using the dollar and the U.S. is talking about bombing them and that is on national media. Of course the U.S. is saying its for other reasons. He said there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoins. If the miners of bitcoin decide to make it 42 million 10 years from now, then there will be 42 million Bitcoins.

  27. @davidturov5947

    December 11, 2025 at 3:55 am

    Hahaha I'm sorry but just in the first 0:43 seconds I realized this guy is clueless as to WHY Gold has ALWAYS been money.

    It fulfills the PROPERTIES that give intrinsic VALUE to gold that Bitcoin won't EVER have.

    These are:
    1)Durability (Bitcoin doesn't fulfill this either, since it exists in cyberspace and requires electricity to exist)
    2)Portability
    3)Divisibility
    4)Uniformity
    5)Limited Supply (NOT true for Bitcoin. Do you think they won't "mine" more than 21 million if they're worth $100k?)
    6) Acceptability
    *7) Some people argue stability of value is ALSO ideal (Gold is worth because of it's physical properties and you can make at the least jewelry and other items). Bitcoin on the other hand doesn't have intrinsic value and it's value is determined by the forces of supply and demand.

    There are less than 300 known elements in the world… GOLD(AU) is one of them. Bitcoin exists only in cyberspace. If there is no electricity Bitcoin will cease to exist.

  32. @mickiteoxon

    December 11, 2025 at 3:55 am

    In the end all countries that uses gold reserves are rich and crypto currency countries always relies on internet to pay their needs and wants. What if other countries will ban bitcoins and other electronic money? Its a risky idea and imaginary millions you have

  36. @drmodestoesq

    December 11, 2025 at 3:55 am

    Bitcoin can't be hacked? That's what the Nazi's thought about the Enigma machine. They had total confidence in the technology. How long did it take the FBI to crack that terrorist's cell phone? What happened to the Bitcoins at Mt. Gox? What's the annual budget of the NSA? Put your faith in 1s and 0s on a data stick all you want. It's your money, or should I say, "money."

  37. @drmodestoesq

    December 11, 2025 at 3:55 am

    Fiat paper money isn't backed by anything? Utterly laughable. What is the only thing the STATE accepts as payment of taxes. The money it creates. What is going to happen to you if you don't pay your taxes? They are going to lock you up in a concrete box with pedophiles and murderers. So unless you are a looney tune that thinks the STATE is going anywhere soon I suggest you get your hands on some government money.

  38. @jonnyhatter35

    December 11, 2025 at 3:55 am

    Great talk, Wences. I'd like to point out, though, that because of the open nature of the blockchain, Bitcoin isn't entirely fungible. Since all transactions can be tracked, it's possible for companies to not accept or "blacklist" certain bitcoins associated with illegal/immoral activities such as gambling, porn, etc. Don't get me wrong, I love bitcoin. But that one draw back could prove problematic down the road when bitcoin is more popular. For that reason, I've begun to diversify into Monero, which is a cryptocurrency that is truly fungible.

  39. @michaelt2974

    December 11, 2025 at 3:55 am

    Is the value in bitcoin due to there being no counterparty risk? That is supposed to be the feature that makes gold valuable beyond its uses for jewelry.  Is it possible that bitcoin will eventually change the monetary system such that gold will only be valued for its use in industry and jewelry?  That would probably mean gold is incredibly overvalued and people should sell their gold.

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