"This is like better gold than gold," said Gavin Andresen, who became lead engineer on Bitcoin after Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous founder of Bitcoin, handed over the reins.

Hal Finney, the first person to receive a bitcoin transaction, which was sent by Satoshi Nakamoto, compared bitcoin to gold, too.

"I see Bitcoin as ultimately becoming a reserve currency for banks, playing much the same role as gold did in the early days of banking," Finney wrote on BitcoinTalk, the forum created by Nakamoto to discuss Bitcoin. "Banks could issue digital cash with greater anonymity and lighter weight, more efficient transactions."

Gold versus bitcoin debate

Billionaire investor Peter Thiel, who said in 2018 he would bet on Bitcoin over all other cryptocurrencies, sees Bitcoin as a store of value, too. "I'm not talking about a new payments system," Thiel said, adding that bitcoin is too cumbersome for that use case.

"It's like bars of gold in a vault that never move, and it's a sort of hedge of sorts against the whole world going falling apart."

Yet, if you spend time on Crypto Twitter, you've perhaps seen the contempt Bitcoiners hold for goldbugs...and vice versa.

"Bitcoin bugs claim that Bitcoin is superior to gold as a store of value," as Euro Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff highlights. He and other gold bugs feel the same way about gold versus Bitcoin.

Schiff and Anthony Pompliano, a staunch proponent of Bitcoin and co-founder & Partner at Morgan Creek Digital, interminably debate on Twitter the virtues of their respective assets of choice.