A single Bitcoin is now worth more than an ounce of gold
If you own Bitcoin, rejoice: A single unit of digital cryptocurrency is now worth more than an ounce of actual, physical gold.
According to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index, the price of 1 Bitcoin is $1,281.95 at the time of this writing, while the gold spot price is $1,227.66 per ounce, according to Bloomberg Markets.
The two prices met after a shoddy day and a flat year for gold, in contrast to the amazing year Bitcoin has had in terms of price -- exactly a year ago, the cryptocurrency traded at around $200 per one Bitcoin.
The correlation between the two numbers is not very important as the price of physical gold has little to do with the price of one Bitcoin. But it's an important psychological barrier for Bitcoin, which is currently trading at an all-time high, as the cryptocurrency has often (and somewhat inaccurately) been called "digital gold."
The reasons behind Bitcoin's price surge -- after its horrendous slump in 2014 -- aren't very clear, but one possibility is the market's positive expectations with regards to the U.S. SEC approving the Winklevoss brothers' bitcoin ETF, which would make trading Bitcoin in the U.S. much easier.
Does this mean you should ditch gold and buy Bitcoin, or vice versa? Based on just this one fact, absolutely not. Bitcoin's price has been incredibly volatile in the past, and though the past several months look very solid, a number of questions loom over the digital currency, most important of which is the Bitcoin community's inability to reach a consensus over blockchain block size.
Disclaimer: The author of this article owns Bitcoin, as well as several other cryptocurrencies.
Topics Bitcoin
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
