Recently, at a private event in Dubai, Peter Schiff (the staunchest defender of the Gold Standard) and Zhao Changpeng (CZ, founder of Binance) had a face-to-face debate.
This may be the closest public confrontation in recent years regarding the core contradiction of 'Gold Standard vs Bitcoin'.
The atmosphere on-site was explosive, with the audience overwhelmingly supporting BTC, but Peter Schiff remained unwavering.
Here are the highlights of the entire debate, preserving the original rhythm of the conversation.
At the beginning of the event, CZ, as the host, first thanked Peter for being willing to come, considering it very brave since this was clearly CZ's home ground.
Peter Schiff smiled and responded: “Indeed, you have many supporters. But even if they disagree with my view on Bitcoin, we are aligned on many other issues.
I really appreciate you organizing this event, and I thank you for inviting me. Many people I have tried to debate with for years, like Michael Saylor, he has always been avoiding me... at least you dare to get on stage.
The whole place laughed, and CZ immediately responded: 'How about I help you schedule a meeting with Saylor tonight? He's still in Dubai.'
Round One: Peter Schiff introduces his 'Tokenized Gold' plan
Peter didn't directly attack Bitcoin but instead talked about his new project: “I actually wanted to do tokenized gold a long time ago; I have my own website where you can buy physical gold and silver, and we help you allocate, insure, and store it, which is completely redeemable physical (allocated gold).
In the future, you have three exit options:
Sell and convert to dollars;
Extract physical gold bars or coins.
Extracting into blockchain-based gold standard tokens.
This token represents ownership of real gold in the vault; you can transfer the token to others at any time, and they will then own that portion of gold.
Gold remains unchanged, ownership moves.
Thus, gold becomes infinitely divisible, globally instantly transferable, and better in liquidity, but essentially remains currency supported by physical gold.
And Bitcoin? It has nothing behind it.
CZ summarized: “So what you mean is, tokenized gold has better liquidity than physical gold, but still has physical backing?”
Peter: “Yes! It improves all monetary properties of gold while retaining the most important one—it has intrinsic value because it is backed by gold.”
Round Two: That one-kilogram gold bar from Kyrgyzstan
To intuitively demonstrate the 'credibility issue of physical gold,' CZ had a beautiful wooden box brought up, containing a gold bar engraved with 'Kyrgyzstan 999.9 pure gold 1 kilogram' (the gold price at that time was about $130,000 per piece).
CZ: “This was given to me by an important figure from Kyrgyzstan; I brought it up to ask: do you believe this is real gold?”
Peter picked it up, weighed it, looked at its color, and frowned: “The color is a bit off; the one I wear is the standard hue. And I completely don't recognize this mint. If it were a well-known mint like Perth, Credit Suisse, or PAMP, I would trust it at first glance.
But this... I have to send it for testing to know if it's real.
CZ laughed and said, 'How about I give it to you?'
Peter: “If you really want to give it to me, I believe it; if you don't give it to me, then it must be fake.”
This gold bar perfectly illustrates Peter's core point: physical gold is actually very troublesome in terms of cross-border transfer and trust issues, which is why he wants to do tokenized gold.
Round Three: Does Bitcoin really have value?
CZ countered: “You use an iPhone, you use the internet, right? The internet is purely virtual, Twitter is also virtual, but they have great value.
Bitcoin actually has no physical existence; there are only transaction records on the blockchain, but that does not prevent it from having value. Value does not necessarily come from physical attributes.
Peter: “I never said that intangible things have no value; company goodwill is also intangible. But the problem with Bitcoin is that besides being transferred back and forth, it can do nothing. Gold has industrial uses, jewelry uses, central bank reserve uses, and it never decays; gold from ten thousand years ago is still gold.
If I own one ounce of gold, it means I own the present value of all possible uses of gold from now until the extinction of humanity. What about Bitcoin? After you transfer it to me, I haven't received anything because it originally doesn't exist.
Round Four: Scarcity and Future Supply
CZ: “You say gold is scarce, but we don’t know how much more is left to be dug up on Earth. If one day a super big mine is discovered, or if future technology can synthesize gold, then the supply will explode. Bitcoin has a hard cap of 21 million, which is forever verifiable.”
Peter: “Synthetic gold? Alchemists haven't figured it out for hundreds of years. The annual increase in gold mining is only 1-2%, extremely stable. And central banks are still buying a lot of gold; they won't buy Bitcoin.”
Round Five: Is Bitcoin currency?
Peter: “Bitcoin is not currency because no one uses it to price things.
Salaries, housing prices, goods—all are not priced in Bitcoin. 99% of the transaction volume is just speculation, not used for buying things. Even the Visa card issued by Binance essentially converts Bitcoin into fiat currency for merchants instantly, not used to pay with Bitcoin.”
CZ had someone bring a Binance Card to the scene: “Now there are millions of such cards globally; when users swipe the card, it directly deducts cryptocurrency, so for users, it is like paying with cryptocurrency.
We solve the fiat conversion in the middle, merchants take dollars, and users feel like they are spending Bitcoin.
Peter: “Then sell Bitcoin for fiat to spend, rather than having Bitcoin circulate directly as a currency. My gold token is meant to keep the entire transaction within the gold system, without touching fiat.”
Round Six: Over the past four years, who performed better?
Peter brought out killer data: “Four years ago, Bitcoin peaked at $69,000, which could buy 37.2 ounces of gold. Today, $100,000 can only buy 22.1 ounces, a drop of 40%.
What happened in the past four years? The U.S. approved Bitcoin ETFs, MicroStrategy borrowed $40 billion to buy coins, El Salvador's national strategic reserves, Super Bowl ads, celebrity endorsements, political donations... the largest scale of promotion in history, but Bitcoin still dropped 40% against gold.
If even this can’t be moved, how can it rise in the future?
Round Seven: Will young people choose gold or Bitcoin?
CZ: “Which will the next generation of young people prefer, Bitcoin or gold?”
Peter: “They will prefer gold because their friends have already lost a lot in Bitcoin. It's good for young people to lose money—when you're young, you can afford to lose and learn lessons. When they get older and have money, they won't touch this kind of thing again.”
The two ended with a handshake.
CZ: “I completely disagree with your conclusion, but I sincerely hope your tokenized gold is successful.
In the future, feel free to trade your gold standard tokens on Binance; we can even collaborate to issue gold standard cards.
Peter: “No problem, I also hope you bring gold into the blockchain world. No
I believe that in the future, gold will greatly outperform Bitcoin; we will see next year.
This debate had no winner, nor did it completely convince the other side, but it laid bare the core contradictions between the two camps:
One side believes: currency must have physical backing, otherwise, it is a bigger 'fiat currency scam';
The other side believes: decentralized, verifiable scarcity, and globally instant transfer of digital assets is a brand new paradigm of value.
Which side are you on? Feel free to leave comments for discussion. In the grand bull market of 2025, will gold or Bitcoin laugh last? Time will tell.