Why 1 Bitcoin Is Worth More Than a Kilo of Gold (3 Reasons)
The chart below compares the price of one bitcoin (blue line) with the price of one kilo of gold (gold line). Both are in US dollars. As you can see, a single bitcoin is now worth more than a kilo of the yellow metal. What’s even more interesting is how quickly the premier crypto has caught up over the past five years.
Here are three reasons why one bitcoin is worth more than a kilo of gold today.
1. Bitcoin is digital, gold is physical
Bitcoin is light and digital, while gold is heavy and physical. Many people argue that gold’s physical nature makes it more valuable than bitcoin, which only exists online. But when you dig deeper, you can flip that argument on its head. Since bitcoin only exists on a secure blockchain, it has a few advantages over gold.
Bitcoin is easier to divide, store, verify, and transport than gold. Each bitcoin splits into 100 million sats, making it more practical for payments or tracking wealth. You can store bitcoin safely in your pocket or phone, without needing a vault or insurance. It moves fast and cheaply across borders and time zones – even during weekends and holidays. You can’t say all that about a big bar of gold.
Bitcoin also avoids a lot of the risks that come with holding physical gold. Governments have seized gold in the past, like in 1933. Fake or impure gold still circulates today, and you usually need a trusted third party to test or store it.
Bitcoin doesn’t rely on any of that. You control it with private keys, and anyone can verify ownership through the public blockchain. You don’t need permission to hold or move it – and no one can take it unless they have your private keys.
Side note: check out this guide to learn how to store bitcoin safely.
| Feature | Bitcoin | Gold |
|---|---|---|
| Divisibility | Divides into 100 million sats | Difficult to divide without melting or loss |
| Storage | Digital wallet, no vault required | Needs secure physical storage and insurance |
| Verification | Verified on public blockchain | Requires testing or expert verification |
| Portability | Send globally in minutes | Expensive and slow to ship |
| Accessibility | Use anywhere with internet | Harder to access during travel or crises |
| Confiscation risk | Controlled by private keys | Has been seized by governments in the past |
| Operating hours | 24/7 global access | Limited by market hours and physical access |
2. Bitcoin is scarcer than gold
The World Gold Council says miners have pulled over 216,000 tons (or 216 million kilos) of gold out of the ground so far. That’s enough gold to fill about four Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Still, most of that gold came out in the past 70 years, as mining tech got better. And with tools like AI, mining could get even more efficient. There’s less “easy to mine” gold left for miners, but their technology keeps improving.
The bitcoin supply is capped at 21 million coins – and nothing can change that. The network adjusts the bitcoin mining algorithm automatically, so bitcoin blocks still take around ten minutes to mine. That pace stays fixed no matter what.
Because there’s a bitcoin supply halving event every four years, miners have already created more than 19.5 million bitcoin. That’s 95% of the total bitcoin supply, compared to around 77% of gold’s (that we know about). It will take bitcoin miners until the year 2140 to mine the last 5% of the coin supply. We can’t say the same about gold.
Side note: If you want to compare bitcoin and gold supply on a like-for-like basis, check out the stock-to-flow model.
3. Bitcoin has a smaller market value than gold
Gold’s total market size is around $22 trillion today, while bitcoin’s is just $2.2 trillion. That’s one reason bitcoin’s price has climbed faster than gold’s – it takes way less buying pressure to move the needle.
One bitcoin was worth less than an ounce of gold a decade ago. Today, it’s worth more than a kilo. If bitcoin’s total market size ever matched gold’s, one coin would be worth about 10 kilos of gold.
Key takeaways
- Bitcoin is easier to store, move, and verify than gold.
- Bitcoin’s supply is fixed at 21 million coins forever.
- If bitcoin’s market cap catches gold, the price could hit 10 kilos per coin.
