비트코인은 디지털 금이 될 수 있을까요?
사람들이 비트코인을 디지털 금이라고 부르는 데는 이유가 있습니다. 금과 비트코인은 쓰임새가 완전히 같진 않지만, 둘 다 가치 저장 수단이라는 역할로 자주 비교됩니다. 쉽게 말해, 시간이 지나도 가치가 크게 무너지지 않도록 ‘가치를 담아두는 그릇’으로 바라보는 시각이 있다는 뜻입니다.
There is a reason people call Bitcoin digital gold. Gold and Bitcoin do not have exactly the same uses, but they are often compared for their role as a store of value. Simply put, there is a perspective that views them as a “vessel that holds value” so that it does not collapse significantly over time.
What is a Store of Value
A store of value is a tool that moves purchasing power from today to tomorrow. For example, if you have a value of 1 million won now, and you can maintain similar purchasing power a year later, you can say you have “stored value.” Conversely, if the same 1 million won buys significantly less a year later, we feel that “value has leaked out” in the process.
This is where many people think of inflation. When prices rise, the amount of goods you can buy with the same money decreases. So, a time comes when holding just cash feels like a loss, and people naturally look for assets that retain value for a long time (real estate, stocks, gold, Bitcoin, etc.). It is helpful to understand the attention Bitcoin receives in this context.
Bitcoin’s Scarcity
One of the big reasons gold is valuable is scarcity. Gold is not a resource that comes out of the ground infinitely. It costs money to mine, and it is not easy to increase. Because it is difficult for supply to explode suddenly, it has been accepted as an asset that maintains value over a long time.
Bitcoin is also designed to intentionally mimic this structure. The key point is that “the total quantity is fixed.” Bitcoin has a limit on issuance. Simply put, it is an asset designed so that no one can suddenly decide to produce more Bitcoin. This point gives people a similar impression to gold. The intuition is that “if demand increases but supply does not increase at will, value is not easily diluted.”
Acquisition Cost Called Mining
Not only is gold scarce, but the fact that “it costs money to mine” is also important. To obtain gold, you must explore, dig, refine, and transport. Costs are incurred in this process, and this cost acts as a “brake” that keeps gold’s supply from increasing easily.
Bitcoin also goes through a process called “mining.” Here, mining does not mean digging the ground, but a structure where computers perform complex calculations to operate the network, and new Bitcoin is issued as a reward. Real-world costs like electricity and equipment are also involved in this process.
What does this mean? It means that Bitcoin is similar to gold’s production structure in that it is an asset obtained by paying a certain cost, rather than just pressing a button to print it. Of course, we cannot simplify that price is determined by cost, but the sense that “supply does not increase for free” approaches many people similarly to gold.
The Inflation Era and Bitcoin
In an inflationary environment, it feels like the value of money is being chipped away little by little. The important point here is the perception that “the purchasing power I worked hard to earn seems to naturally decrease over time.” Therefore, people come to want “assets that endure better than the rate at which value is diluted.”
In this situation, Bitcoin throws out a strong message. “A digital asset where supply cannot be increased at will.” This message can sound attractive to people who are anxious about inflation. Gold has played that role for a long time, and Bitcoin can be seen as an experiment to implement that role in a digital environment.
Reading up to here, the question “So is Bitcoin as safe as gold?” naturally comes up. To give the conclusion first, digital gold does not mean Bitcoin and gold are exactly the same, but a metaphor that specific characteristics (scarcity, supply constraint, expectation of storing value) resemble each other.
Gold has been historically recognized as a store of value for a long time and tends to have relatively low volatility. On the other hand, Bitcoin is still in a stage where the market is maturing and price volatility is high. In other words, while the idea of a store of value is easy to understand, it is problematic to accept that the price is always stable.
Conclusion
There are two main reasons Bitcoin is compared to gold. First, it has scarcity with a limited supply. Second, there is an acquisition cost through the mining process, so supply does not increase for free. And as the feeling that my money’s purchasing power decreases due to inflation grows, people become interested in assets with these characteristics.
The easiest perspective to understand Bitcoin is to see it as a value storage experiment with limited supply that emerged in the digital age. Just as gold has played that role for a long time, we can view it as a process where social consensus is being formed on whether Bitcoin can also fulfill that role.
