Peter Schiff Fails To Authenticate Gold Bar During Onstage Test...

Gold advocate Peter Schiff faced Binance co-founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao during an event panel in Dubai, arguing that tokenized gold is a better store-of-value asset than Bitcoin.

A panel featuring gold advocate Peter Schiff and Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao at Binance Blockchain Week highlighted the challenges of verifying physical gold, after Schiff was unable to confirm whether a gold bar presented to him was genuine.

The debate centered on whether tokenized gold or Bitcoin (BTC) is a better store of value asset based on divisibility, portability, verifiability, durability and supply constraints — key factors in assessing an asset’s viability as money.

CZ argued that BTC is a better medium for storing value for several reasons, including the ability for any user to instantly verify the cryptocurrency through a full node or other methods that check a cryptographically secure public ledger.

CZ handed Schiff a gold bar and asked: “It says Kyrgyzstan, 1,000 grams, fine gold, 999.9, and a serial number. Is it real gold?”

“I don’t know,” Schiff responded, drawing laughter and applause from the audience of crypto natives. In October, CZ criticized tokenized gold, saying that the holder must trust the issuer, which led to Thursday’s showdown with Schiff.

The debate between gold advocates and Bitcoiners has evolved over the years, with gold advocates, including Schiff, arguing that gold tokenization solves many of gold’s portability, divisibility and verification issues while being useful for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.

However, Bitcoin advocates say that real-world asset tokenization (RWA), or representing real-world items on a blockchain, does not solve the problems inherent in the physical gold underlying digital gold tokens, including centralization, counterparty risks and expensive audit procedures.

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There are several industry-wide accepted methods for assaying, or scientifically verifying the precious metals content of gold, according to the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), the international gold bullion trade association that sets industry standards for weight, refinement, trading, storage and reputable custodians.

Source: CoinTelegraph