Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Says, Bitcoin Is Better Than Gold

Apple Co-founder chooses Bitcoin over Gold

During the Money 20/20 conference held in Las Vegas, Steve Wozniak the co-founder of Apple asserted that he would rather bank on Bitcoin comparison to the “phony” U.S. dollar and the yellow metal. In spite of being deeply criticized for its inherent price volatility, Bitcoin having a fixed supply is much more stable when compared to government-backed currencies like that of the U.S. dollar since the later gets easily diluted. Wozniak was quoted as saying, “There is a certain finite amount of bitcoin that can ever exist,” which makes it all the “more genuine and real”compared to dollar, which is “kind of phony” as the U.S government has ultimate control over its issue and can use the same as a tool to power up political tactics.

While praising Bitcoin’s utility as a commendable store of value, Wozniak drew comparisons of the dynamic cryptocurrency with real estate which is a highly appreciable asset. He pointed out that, “your house has value. And if it is a house today, 40 years from now, it still is a house in value,” in spite of its price increasing over time. Previously, investors used to bank on gold as a safe hedge against inflationary trends. However Wozniak feels that in spite of gold having a fixed supply, advancement in technology will enable miners to extract more from the earth with enhanced efficiency thus diluting its fixed supply to a certain extent.

Wozniak stated,  “Gold gets mined and mined and mined. Maybe there’s a finite amount of gold in the world, but Bitcoin is even more mathematical and regulated and nobody can change mathematics.” This view totally contradicts the stand taken by investment banking giant Goldman Sachs which recently warned its clients stating that Bitcoin definitely is not the “new gold” as gold is a much more secure landing pad for investors in comparison to Bitcoins.

Woznaik also stated that on first learning about Bitcoin, he was in complete awe of its mathematical architecture but could not clearly understand the equation behind its operation. However, he understands the same now and is a big time supporter of both Cryptocurrency and Blockchain technology. Apart from Bitcoin, he is also extremely excited about its next in line competitor Ethereum which houses tremendous possibilities to open up, “tens of thousands of [software] programs.” He concludes by saying, “there is a lot more to this cryptocurrency than just the Bitcoin.” Well, we hope to get a flavour of its unearthed resources sometime soon.

Bitcoin surges above $6,000 for the first time on heavy trading volume

• Bitcoin climbs to a record above $6,000 as investors bet on future gains for the digital currency, especially as events in the next few weeks could remove major overhangs .
• Trading volume in bitcoin also far surpassed that of other digital currencies, indicating high investor demand.
• The gains come despite greater scrutiny of bitcoin from regulators and strong criticism from major bank executives.

Bitcoin surged 5 percent to a record high above $6,000 on high trading volume Friday.

The cryptocurrency hit a record high of $6,003.81 in late morning New York trading, according to CoinDesk. Bitcoin later pared some gains to trade around $5,905 by early afternoon.

Twenty-four hour trading volume in U.S. dollars for bitcoin was nearly $2 billion, versus the hundreds of millions for other digital currencies such as ethereum and the bitcoin offshoot, bitcoin cash, according to another industry data website, CoinMarketCap.

Bitcoin throwdown: Analysts spar on whether the cryptocurrency is a good deal or too risky.

Bitcoin's meteoric rise in price this year is backing people into two camps: the deeply suspicious and the incredibly enthusiastic.

Andrew Left, a bitcoin critic, and Tom Lee, an all-in admirer, squared off Wednesday on CNBC's "Fast Money."

Left, of Citron Research, is a noted short seller who likes to find stocks that he thinks are overvalued and due for a fall, and bitcoin has been a big focus of his lately. This summer, Left outlined his argument against the Bitcoin Investment Trust, a fund run by Grayscale Investments that is supposed to track the cryptocurrency's meteoric rise. Left says bitcoin is exorbitantly priced relative to its underlying value.

But Lee, of Fundstrat Global Advisors, has said he sees bitcoin going to $25,000 in five years and possibly $55,000, and he has endorsed the Bitcoin Investment Trust, calling it an "attractive buy."

At the time Left revealed his bearish call, bitcoin was trading hear $4,775. It is now trading around $5,695, a gain of 19 percent in less than two months.

The Bitcoin Investment Trust is up 456 percent for the year.

Left said on Wednesday that Lee's call of $25,000 is "irresponsible," and that he's giving investors the idea they can get rich fast. "We don't know what bitcoin is right now," he said. "It has to find its identity." He questions whether it is a currency or an asset.

Lee said on CNBC that buying the Bitcoin Investment Trust is a way to capture most of the potential rise in bitcoin with more liquid exposure and he admits bitcoin is a "very risky" investment in and of itself. He agreed investors should only allocate a small amount of their money.

Fundstrat's Lee, a former chief equity strategist at JPMorgan Chase, sees the cryptocurrency as a store of value like gold, and investor interest will push the price up. "I unequivocally think bitcoin is your best investment," he told "Fast Money" last month.

"I wouldn't want investors to put 100 percent of their money into bitcoin," he said. "I actually think it's still early," adding bitcoin wasn't a bubble as he could see.

Though bitcoin is not widely held now, efforts by the Chicago Board Options Exchange to offer bitcoin futures trading by early next year may help increase ownership, he said.

His view is in stark contrast to that of his former boss, JPMorgan ChaseCEO Jamie Dimon, who has called bitcoin a "fraud," but says he sees value in the blockchain technology that supports it. Many banks have been exploring the use of blockchain, a digital accounting ledger that lets users follow a chain of transactions, for settlement and other uses.

But other prominent bankers have been less critical. Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein has said he hasn't made up his mind about bitcoin though the bank is exploring how to trade it in response to inquiries from clients.

Bitcoin splits again, creating a new cryptocurrency called bitcoin gold that then plunged 66%

The price of bitcoin took a hit after the cryptocurrency underwent another split, with the newly-created bitcoin gold seeing its value plunge over 60 percent.

Bitcoin hit a low of $5,374.60 on Wednesday before recovering nearly $300. The initial fall followed the "hard fork" that occurred Tuesday.

CNBC runs through what you need to know about the big event.

What is the 'hard fork' about?

Firstly, it's important to understand how the bitcoin system works. Transactions by users are gathered into "blocks" that are turned into a complex math solution. So-called miners, using high-powered computers, work these solutions out to determine if the transaction is possible. Once other miners also check the puzzle is correct, the transactions are approved and the miners are rewarded in bitcoin.

The need for high-end machinery has meant that mining is controlled by a small group of people with powerful computers.

Jack Liao, the CEO of LightningASIC, which sells mining equipment, came up with bitcoin gold as a way to change this dynamic.

The idea is to allow bitcoin gold to be mined by more people with less powerful machines, therefore decentralizing the network further and opening it up to a wider user base.

To this end, the collective behind bitcoin gold came up with a code that creates a "fork" or split in the bitcoin blockchain. That occurred on October 24 and resulted in the creation of the bitcoin gold cryptocurrency.

Hasn't a fork happened before?

Yes. In July, bitcoin underwent a similar fork that led to the creation of bitcoin cash.

There was an initial surge in price, and it hit an all-time high of $914.45, but has fallen steadily, according to data from Coinmarketcap.com. On Wednesday, bitcoin cash was trading just above $330.

Bitcoin cash's market capitalization — the total value of the cryptocurrency in circulation — is just over $5.5 billion, compared to more than $93 billion for bitcoin.

How is bitcoin gold trading?

Everyone who owns bitcoin will receive bitcoin gold. This is being issued at the rate of 1 bitcoin gold to bitcoin. Since bitcoin gold was issued, its price has plunged over 66 percent, trading at just over $161 per coin, according to Coinmarketcap data.

It appears the sell-off was due to investors dumping the cryptocurrency, perhaps signaling a lack of faith in the newly-created coin.

Bitcoin also fell sharply Wednesday before recovering and other cryptocurrencies like ethereum took a hit too.

Bitcoin gold has faced teething problems in the few hours it has been around. The website for the new cryptocurrency suffered a distributed denial-of-service attack, which is when a server is overloaded with requests.

And many major cryptocurrency exchanges have not begun trading in bitcoin gold yet.

What are experts saying about the fork?

There are differences of opinions within the bitcoin industry as to whether a fork is good or bad.

"These forks are very bad for bitcoin. Saturating the market with different versions of bitcoin is confusing to users, and discredits the claim that there are a limited number of bitcoins — since you can always fork it and double the supply," Sol Lederer, blockchain director at Loomia, said in an emailed statement Tuesday.

But some have said forks are a good part of any cryptocurrency ecosystem.

"If a crypto-community has irreconcilable differences, then you can go your separate ways and that is just fine," Bob Summerwill, chief blockchain developer at Sweetbridge, a company creating blockchain solutions, said in a statement Tuesday.

Still, there is bullishness around bitcoin. A survey carried out by CNBC last week asking where the bitcoin price was headed found that 49 percent of the 23,118 people who voted answered "above $10,000."