When the Federal Reserve pushes the dollar to the breaking limit with inflation, which citadel do you think the public will flee to? The new big boy in alternative currency, Bitcoin, or the older, conservative, method of storing wealth, gold and silver?

Right now, they’re going to flee to gold and silver. Most people don’t know about Bitcoin and of those who do many are skeptical. At the least, Bitcoin needs to overcome the following hurdles before people will actually use those digital coins:

1. Secure e-wallets

The big point that people always make when explaining Bitcoin is that it is easy to use. But there has not yet been a safe and secure way to use bitcoins online. With conventional banking methods, you can always chargeback an unauthorized transfer, with bitcoins, once it’s gone, it’s gone. This means that increase security measures for all Bitcoin e-wallets is required. (Take a look at the Linode news if you don’t agree with me.)

2. Simple how-to information

There is not enough emphasis on educating the average user on only the things they need to know. Does a majority of the public need to know about mining? No. Does a majority of the public need to know about the blockchain? No. They only need to know enough about Bitcoin to use it. Trust me, they will only listen to about that much anyways. People need to know the benefits of using Bitcoins and how to use it. That’s all.

3. A public face

The gold and silver world is dominated by a series of giants who are all very amiable and, shall I say it, rockstars. They are upfront and personal, they show videos of themselves on their sites, they lend their name to their brand. Bitcoin needs to do the same. Bitcoin businesses cannot be anonymous. There needs to be a group of people who will step up and put their name and face behind Bitcoin.

Those are three big hurdles for Bitcoin to tackle. Will these hurdles be accomplished before Federal Reserve pushes America to the brink? I don’t know for sure… But until then, I’ll be counting on my gold coins.

Why not have both? Visit Coinabul.com to buy gold with bitcoins!

Is there a correlation between the closing spot price of gold and the closing price of BTC? Below is a chart showing the commodity and crypto-currency’s performance over the past thirty days.

So is there a correlation? Nope.

Have a good weekend everyone! Gold is bullish, Bitcoin is recovering, everything looks good.

Tags: Bitcoin, correlation, Gold, spot price

In the post I’m going to compare the various methods of purchasing bullion online with Bitcoin. Let me know about your experiences in the comments below! To calculate the price over spot I took the cheapest 1 oz coin that each site offered. The reason the coins sell higher than spot price is because there is a cost in minting coins, not to mention any premiums the sites put on their products. Anyways, without further ado… How to buy gold or silver with bitcoins!

Coinabul.com 

This is probably the best site out there to purchase gold, silver, and other precious metals. They accept Bitcoin and are very vocal in the Bitcoin community. I also like the fact that they have phone support. They ship internationally and even have a built in Bitcoin payment system.  Another plus is that Coinabul is a registered business. Too many of these other sites are run by anonymous operators. The downside of Coinabul is that they have a pretty horrible website design. I’m not a big fan of the bright colors. There have also been reports of delayed shipping times, but Coinabul claims the delays were do to the holidays. All-in-all Coinabul is an honest business that is easy to contact and easy to purchase from. 

Reputation: Golden

Ease of use: Golden

Shipping: Silver

1 oz gold coin price over spot: $119.0655

More reviews at The Bitcoin Review

[EDIT: Coinabul just sent me a discount code for all my readers, put in coupon code: BITCOINGOLD to get a discount on all their products!]

CryptoXChange.com 

Crypto X Change is mainly a Bitcoin Exchange, but it also has a store which allows you to purchase a couple different types of bullion. CXC is a trusted Bitcoin company, so I have no qualms about buying from them… But I’m not entirely sure if they allowing shipping to the United States. It is also obvious that that portion of the site is not their main focus; not to mention I haven’t heard of anyone ordering from them.

Reputation: Golden

Ease of use: Silver

Shipping: Silver

1 oz gold coin price over spot: $187.8296

More reviews at The Bitcoin Review 

Bitcoincommodities.com 

This is another bullion store. They seem to have a vastly smaller selection which leads me to believe that this is simply a collector selling off his personal collection. The site also looks fairly amateur. A cool thing that this site has is a savings plan, which allows you to convert BTC to Gold on a regular basis.

Reputation: Silver

Ease of use: Silver

Shipping: Silver

1 oz gold coin price over spot: $255.40645

USE THE FOLLOWING SITES

AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION: 

Mjbmonetarymetals 

This website makes a valiant attempt, however, their contact email is a yahoo address. They appear to offer a lot of different products but the site is a bit cluttered.

Reputation: Copper

Ease of use: Copper

Shipping: Silver

More reviews at The Bitcoin Review

Bitcoinmint 

This site offers one selection. Let’s just say I’m not impressed. I’m under the illusion that this site is about to close.

Reputation: Silver

Ease of use: Copper

Shipping: Copper

Chariottrading 

Chariottrading seems like a site that is tailored for collectors. However, their design draws too many inspirations from the internet of the 1990′s.

Reputation: Silver

Ease of use: Copper

Shipping: Copper

Goldstarbullion 

They make me calculate how much I have to pay them? *Sigh*

Reputation: Copper

Ease of use: Copper

Shipping: Copper

Tags: Bitcoin, Bitcoincommodities, Bitcoinmint, Chariottrading, Coinabul, CryptoXChange, CXC, Gold, Goldstarbullion, Mjbmonetarymetals, silver

Bitcoin is better than gold. In fact, I’m ready to say that Bitcoin is ready to replace gold. Here’s why:

Bitcoins are easily divisible to 8 decimal places, more in the future.

• Gold is not divisible.
• You can not easily cut up gold to give people small amounts.

• Gold is not instantly assayable.
• You can’t instantly tell if gold is pure.

You can instantly prove how many bitcoins you have.

• Gold is not instantly weighable.
• (Unless you carry a scale.)

• Gold is not transmittable over the Internet.
• Sending gold notes has counter party risk.

You can memorize your Bitcoin private key.

• Gold can be confiscated.
• You must store your gold somewhere.
• Gold possession can be outlawed.
• Governments can make it illegal to own gold.

Bitcoin’s P2P nature make nationalization of Bitcoin impractical.

• Gold can be nationalized.
• Governments can take control of gold mining operations.

I think that Bitcoin is definitely the future of value storage. However, until it truly goes mainstream, I’m still keeping some investment in gold. Luckily there are services out there that let you exchange your gold for bitcoins if you’re ready to make the leap!

Suggested reading:

The US governement has confiscated gold from citizens before:

Tags: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Gold, Coinabul, Gold, gold mining