Original Title: the Peter Schiff interview

Original Source: CounterParty TV

Original Translation: Ethan, Odaily Planet Daily

Editor's Note: Do you still remember the live broadcast that took place three hours before the "10/11 Cleansing"? It was the same broadcast room, the same host, but this time CZ sat in front of the camera discussing Meme coins, the BNB ecosystem, and the decentralized future. (For more details, see: "What did CZ say in the first 3 hours before the 10/11 Cleansing?")

Just two weeks later, the host handed the microphone to the other end—Peter Schiff, an economist, a loyal follower of gold, and the most stubborn critic of the crypto community.

One is the "founder of the crypto world," the other is the "guardian of traditional finance"; one side is writing code and whitepapers, the other side is adhering to the gold standard and hard money. If CZ represents "crypto idealism," then Schiff is the embodiment of "monetary realism." He jokingly referred to himself at the beginning of the show as "wearing a polo shirt and shorts," but then followed with a series of sharp arguments that silenced the crypto community:

· "You can divide nothingness into a thousand parts, but it's still nothingness."

· "Bitcoin has no intrinsic value; its entire value comes from speculation."

· "Stablecoins are anchored to the dollar, but the dollar itself is not stable."

Now, the so-called "Godfather of Gold," the old-school economist, is preparing to officially challenge CZ—a debate titled "Bitcoin vs Tokenized Gold" (CZ has responded to the invitation, and the debate is tentatively scheduled to take place during early December at Binance Blockchain Week). He revealed that the core of this debate will revolve around the three functions of money: "Which asset can better serve as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value simultaneously?" In Schiff's view, Bitcoin is an illusion for speculators, and "tokenized gold" is the digital return of money; while for CZ, Bitcoin is the foundational consensus of decentralization, a "human self-correction of power."

Thus, this interview is not just a conversation but more of a "prologue to the debate" between two eras, two beliefs, and two perspectives on currency. Below is the original interview content, translated by Odaily Planet Daily. For smoother reading, some content has been slightly condensed.

Original Text

Host: I've watched many of your interviews, such as when you warned about the crisis in 2007 and the hosts were all laughing, or when you insisted on a $5000 price target for gold when it was at $1200 and had a heated argument with the host. These predictions were eventually proven correct. I'd like to start from here: What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding of the gold community about gold in the crypto world?

Peter Schiff: Many people misunderstand gold because they want to defend bitcoin. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value—it is not a raw material that can be used to make things, nor is it a consumable item. It is just a digital symbol that you can transfer to someone else, and when they receive it, they can't do anything with it either, except pass it on to the next person.

So they mistakenly lump gold into the same category, thinking gold is just a "useless rock" that only has value because people "believe it has value." They conclude from this: if gold can be priced "by faith," then bitcoin can too.

But they overlook the most critical point: gold does have intrinsic value, and it is very high. That is precisely why it can function as money—it is a scarce and precious tangible commodity. Gold is superior to other commodities and can be used as money in the long term because it possesses a set of unique attributes: divisibility, fungibility, durability, and portability. While bitcoin does mimic gold in these attributes, it lacks the most fundamental aspect—intrinsic value.

Without this, everything else is just talk. You can divide "nothingness" into countless pieces, but it's still "nothingness." Gold can be divided because it is intrinsically valuable.

From the perspective of elements, gold is one of the most useful metals on Earth. It is not more widely used in industry precisely because it is too expensive and too scarce—and that precisely constitutes its value. Gold is used in many fields: most notably in jewelry, although you can make jewelry with other metals, people prefer gold. In addition, it is also used in electronics, aerospace, medical, dental, and other industries.

Another important use is as money. Gold can serve as a store of value because it does not decay or wear out. You can bury a gold coin for five hundred years, and when you dig it up, it is still as shiny as new, with no loss of value. This means that gold can store wealth across time and can still be used in the future.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, does not work this way. No one "needs" bitcoin today, and they won't in the future either. It cannot store value because it has no value to store. It does have some technological innovations, but those are merely technical features. There are now thousands of cryptocurrencies, each claiming to be "unique," but none of them have real utility or intrinsic value. Moreover, new coins can be continuously issued, rendering even the so-called "scarcity" void.

The entire cryptocurrency market is fundamentally a giant bubble. Those who got in early made money—they held coins early on, cashed out at a high price during the bubble expansion. Those profits ultimately came from the losses of latecomers. That's how it operates: early entrants get rich, latecomers hold the bag.

Host: You seem to have a good grasp of the Bitcoin concept. But looking back, do you ever reconsider your "go to zero" prophecy in 2017?

Peter Schiff: I still believe that Bitcoin will eventually go to zero, so I don't think I was "wrong." But I do admit that I underestimated the level of public gullibility and the marketing talent of Bitcoin promoters.

Bitcoin's early participants were extremely successful in marketing—their crafted a compelling "narrative" that made people willingly buy what they wanted to sell. One could say this was a massive "pump and dump" game. The earliest holders—called "OG" or "whales"—held a significant amount of Bitcoin; they essentially created a market out of nothing, convincing the public of its value, driving up the price to cash out at a high.

In my view, the market trends of the past few years have essentially been a continuation of this dumping process. Especially after the listing of Bitcoin spot ETFs and Trump's election victory, I believe the crypto industry at that time even actively participated in boosting Trump's election, with one of the aims being to continue the "pump" to create more significant exit opportunities for early funds.

Indeed, many made money in that wave. But that's also why Bitcoin's price is currently stagnating. After surging above $100,000, it has been trading sideways for a long time without new highs.

If priced in gold, Bitcoin has actually fallen by about 30%—the Bitcoin-to-gold ratio has dropped from 1:26 to 1:8. From the perspective of gold, it has long been in a bear market.

Host: I noticed you always use "priced in gold" to measure the market, and this consistency is indeed commendable. Let's take a different direction today and not talk much about Bitcoin. Instead, could you explain to our young audience why gold has seen its best performance this year since 1979? What exactly happened?

Peter Schiff: If most of your audience is from the crypto sphere, my advice is simple: go buy some gold and silver.

I have my own company—called Schiff Gold—and we even accept Bitcoin payments, although we use BitPay to convert Bitcoin to USD and then use it to buy gold or silver. As for why gold has been performing so strongly this year, I believe we are in a stage similar to the 1970s—not just stagflation, but a global monetary system "reset."

In the early 1970s, before Nixon announced the US dollar's departure from the gold standard, the dollar was effectively a representation of gold—not just "backed by gold," but also "directly redeemable for gold." The US dollar held by central banks of various countries was essentially a gold delivery ticket. However, in 1971, the US unilaterally "defaulted" and told other countries, "You can no longer redeem dollars for gold." This meant the US dollar was no longer tied to gold and was left as printed paper. As a result, the dollar depreciated significantly against other major currencies—by about two-thirds. The devaluation against gold was even more drastic: the gold price skyrocketed from $35 to $850 in 1980.

A similar phenomenon occurred with oil. The price of oil rose from $3 per barrel to $40. It wasn't that oil became more expensive; it was that the dollar depreciated. At that time, the US also accused OPEC countries of "price gouging," but the real reason was: we were using "paper" instead of "gold." Since payment was made in paper, they naturally wanted more "paper."

I believe the current situation is like the "second phase" of that transformation. This time, the world is not abandoning gold but the US dollar. For decades, the global economy has still operated under the dollar system. However, now central banks worldwide are quietly de-dollarizing and using gold as a reserve asset. This means the world is moving back towards a reserve system with gold at its core. It may not be a strict "gold standard," but countries will hold more gold and reduce reliance on the dollar, euro, or pound.

For the US, this will be a historic watershed. This means the US can no longer "overspend" as before—cannot buy things it did not produce by printing money and cannot sustain consumption through debt. In the future, the cost of living for Americans will rise significantly, and borrowing costs will soar. Asset prices—especially stocks and real estate—will continue to decline in real value priced in gold. In fact, since 1999, although the Dow Jones index seems to have quadrupled when priced in dollars, when priced in gold, it has actually fallen by over 70%. This is the true measure of purchasing power.

I believe this trend will not stop; instead, it will continue and accelerate. The world is transitioning from the "dollar standard" back to the "gold standard."

Host: Your most core prediction is that the upcoming crisis will make 2008 look like a "Sunday school picnic." Setting aside the metaphor, at a practical level, what does this specifically mean? How will it unfold and what kind of scenario will it present? What early signs should we pay the most attention to?

Peter Schiff: The 2008 crisis was fundamentally a "debt crisis" — starting with the subprime mortgage market and then spreading to institutions holding or insuring those mortgage debts. At that time, the U.S. government, through rescue and stimulus measures, temporarily suppressed the impact. That did indeed prevent the crisis from immediately evolving into a systemic collapse. Strictly speaking, from a longer-term perspective, if there had been no intervention that year, allowing the market to undergo a more thorough cleansing, the U.S. economy might be healthier today. But they chose another path — to kick the can a little further down the road.

However, this time is different — it's a crisis the government can no longer bail out.

I am not predicting a collapse of the mortgage or credit markets but rather predicting a crisis at the U.S. debt level: a true sovereign debt crisis. This is no longer a question of whether the market doubts whether a highly leveraged homeowner can repay a floating-rate mortgage, but rather the world beginning to question — can the U.S. government still repay its debt? What concerns me is not only "nominal default" (although that scenario is not impossible, in a sense, direct default may even be a better outcome than I anticipate). The real risk is: when debt comes due, how much will the U.S. dollar you get back be worth?

If the only means of repaying debt is through printing money — which is indeed the case now — creditors will panic. Look at what Trump is saying: advocating for rate cuts in high inflation times. What does that mean? It means we will create more inflation. When interest rates are long-term below inflation, lenders are not compensated, leading to a systemic sell-off of U.S. debt. Once global investors are no longer willing to buy U.S. Treasuries, nor willing to hold the U.S. dollar, it is not just a sovereign debt crisis but a currency crisis — a crisis at a higher level of the financial system.

Because this time, the so-called "risk-free asset" itself will explode. Its collapse will trigger a full-scale tremor in the credit market. By then, the U.S. government will be unable to rescue anyone; the Federal Reserve also cannot, as in 2008, use the dollar or U.S. debt to "replace" the bad debts of the private sector. TARP's logic was to use U.S. government debt to cover private sector debts — provided that the market still believes in U.S. Treasuries. But now, this confidence is disappearing.

In a scenario of a US dollar crash and skyrocketing inflation, what else can the government do? They can no longer print money recklessly, as that would only add fuel to the fire, causing the dollar to plummet even faster and long-term interest rates to rise. The traditional remedies of the past are now completely ineffective. We are trapped in a dilemma with no way out. The only solution is the path that the government has consistently refused to take for decades—because that path is too painful. But precisely because it has been delayed for so long, facing it now would be even more excruciating.

Host: If the crisis cannot be averted, please describe specifically: Assuming today a year from now (October 22, 2025), how will this crisis unfold? What will be the first tipping point?

Peter Schiff: Let's start with gold. Last week, the price of gold almost surged to $4400, then quickly fell back to nearly $4000; however, regardless, a $4000 gold price is already twice what it was two years ago. Looking back in history, during the 1980 round when the world was abandoning the dollar and losing confidence in the US, how did Paul Volcker rebuild confidence? He pushed short-term interest rates up to 20%. It was essentially saying to people holding dollars, "Don't want to hold dollars? We'll pay you 20% interest." At that time, inflation was at most 10%–12%, and a 20% return was attractive enough to lure funds back in.

At the same time, Reagan came to office and implemented market-oriented reforms and tax policies, completely reversing the previous path of "big government, low efficiency, strong intervention" during the Nixon-Ford-Johnson-Kennedy era, thus rebuilding confidence in the dollar. But today, all these tools have completely failed. First, Trump is not Reagan, and the current Powell is not Volcker—even if Volcker were still around, he wouldn't have the power to do what he did back then. This is because the current level of debt has made it impossible for the US to sustain such interest rates.

In 1980, the US national debt was still less than $1 trillion, and most of it was long-term fixed-rate debt. Even with a 20% rise in short-term rates, the direct fiscal impact was limited. Today is entirely different: about a third of the national debt will mature within a year, total debt exceeds $38 trillion, and the average duration of all debt is only about four to five years (I can't remember the exact numbers, but it's very short). If the interest rate rises to 10%, soon, the annual interest payment will reach $4 trillion, which is almost impossible to bear. We currently collect only $5 trillion in taxes per year, and if short-term rates really hit 10%, the economy would plunge into a deep recession, businesses would go bankrupt on a large scale, unemployment would soar, deficits would explode, and tax revenues would plummet.

The conclusion is: We can no longer combat inflation by raising interest rates because the remedy would kill the patient directly. Since we cannot raise interest rates to "cure," we can only be dragged to death by inflation, which creates the risk of evolving into hyperinflation/a currency crisis.

Is There a Way to Avoid the Worst Outcome? Default (or Debt Restructuring) Is the Answer. The U.S. government could say, "We have borrowed $40 trillion, and we can't repay it all, so we won't. Perhaps we'll give you 25 cents for every dollar, and maybe we can handle that."

At the same time, we need higher interest rates, which is why debt restructuring is necessary: the root of the problem lies in the low interest rates of the past few decades. Now the Federal Reserve and Trump want to lower rates, but what we need is higher interest rates.

Trump complains about deindustrialization and a massive trade deficit. To address these issues, only higher interest rates will work—bringing down consumption, boosting savings, and using those savings to build factories. Without savings, there can be no factories; without factories, we'll still have to import what others produce. The reason we were able to do this in the past is that others were willing to accept our dollars (reserve currency). Once the dollar loses this status, the world won't trade their goods for our "paper." We will have to produce for ourselves, but now we have no production capacity, no infrastructure, no supply chains, no skilled workers—all the advantages the U.S. had decades ago are now gone.

So, this is what it looks like in reality.

Host: To be fair, so far, the idea that "Bitcoin will fail" has not been proven wrong; however, "shorting Bitcoin" seems to have been quite off the mark in the past decade.

Peter Schiff: "Shorting Bitcoin" and "Profiting off Bitcoin" are two completely different things. I admit, the price has indeed risen a lot, that's true. But if it ultimately goes to zero—that would actually prove my original judgment was correct: it's a massive Ponzi scheme. Yes, I could have bought early, sold high, and made a substantial profit. Many people did just that. They didn't really see the true value and long-term prospects of Bitcoin; they just took advantage of more and more people making the same mistake and being willing to buy in at higher prices, thus making money.

The problem is, most people failed to exit at the right time. Someone might have bought in at $5,000, seen the price soar twentyfold on paper, and thought they were "right." But when the price drops back to $1,000, and profits evaporate by 80%, are you really "right" or "wrong"? If those gains were never realized, they practically don't exist. In this sense, I still believe my original judgment of Bitcoin—that it ultimately cannot fulfill its promises—is correct.

Of course, I also admit that I "missed out" on not leveraging this frenzy to make money. I could have bought in at a very early, very low price, and then sold at multiple points to make a huge profit. Over the past three to four years, even up to this year, the returns on my other investments have not been bad either; but if I had bought Bitcoin initially, the returns might have been more astounding. I just didn't do it.

In hindsight, I "should have" done that. Yet, even so, I still believe: those who lose money on Bitcoin will ultimately far outnumber those who make money. Especially those investors who are entering the market now—they are highly likely to suffer heavy losses.

Host: Even if you "missed out" once, if it could result in a thousandfold or even a hundred-thousandfold return, I would be willing to take a gamble. However, you have indeed been saying for a long time that "it will be difficult to rise again." Suppose everything goes as you anticipate—you win, and gold rises to $10,000, $15,000, or even $20,000—what will the world be like then? How should ordinary people respond? Should they go all into gold, or diversify their holdings? If they cannot hold dollars, what should they hold?

Peter Schiff: For someone like me, who is not young and has a considerable amount of assets, I recommend holding some gold—for instance, a position limit of 5%, 10%, or 20%. Besides that, I like dividend-paying stocks; I myself hold many gold stocks as well as many non-gold foreign stocks. I believe they can provide real returns adjusted for inflation, helping American investors maintain their living standards amidst the forthcoming significant devaluation of the dollar.

For many young people who don't have much savings but want to make some preparations, I suggest holding some physical gold and silver—silver is more suitable because it is easier to trade and has a smaller unit value. For example, take out $5,000 to $10,000 to buy some silver coins, which can store value and be used in extreme circumstances.

Moreover, don't just hoard the "just-in-time amount" of essentials every week. If space allows at home, hoard some non-perishable essential items—things you will definitely use six months, a year, or two years later, buy them now because they will be more expensive in the future. Essentially, you are locking in the price for yourself, fighting against inflation. For example, if a toothpaste costs $5 now and $10 a year later, if you buy more now and use it after one year, it's like this "toothpaste investment" has gained 100% (you will use it sooner or later). Rather than putting money in the bank and buying more expensive toothpaste later, it's better to buy now.

Another risk is Price Controls. When the US dollar truly starts to plummet and prices skyrocket, the government may implement price controls as it did during the Nixon era, attempting to "hold down prices." The result is often shortages because when the legal price is pushed below the cost line, businesses simply stop selling. At that point, when you go to the supermarket or pharmacy, the shelves may be empty, possibly even lacking toothpaste. Subsequently, a black market will emerge with higher prices and the risk of imprisonment; and since the black market does not accept credit cards, it may prefer cash. Therefore, stocking up in advance can help you avoid the black market and minimize the impact. Do you remember during the COVID-19 period when everyone couldn't even get toilet paper? If combined with price controls, the situation would be even worse.

Even without price controls, USD depreciation will cause prices to keep rising; however, when priced in silver, many things will become "cheaper." You can buy more goods with less silver. Many people mistakenly believe that Bitcoin can also have this effect, but I believe the outcome will be the opposite: Bitcoin will depreciate against the USD. By then, if you want to buy something with Bitcoin, you will find that you need to spend more Bitcoin because prices denominated in Bitcoin will rise faster than those denominated in USD.

Host: Your "toothpaste investment lesson" just now sounds like an "epic influencer marketing class" in the crypto world. Honestly, over the past two days, I've watched quite a few of your early interviews, and I've gained a newfound respect for you. However, in the crypto community, you are often portrayed as that "angry dad who loves to rant." I wouldn't call myself a "Bitcoin maximalist," but I am indeed a "crypto enthusiast." There's an image that has stuck with me: around 2006, you predicted the financial crisis on Fox News, and everyone on set was laughing — the host, the guests, the audience, everyone burst into laughter. My question is: how did those smart people fail to see the crisis coming collectively before 2008? With so many institutions and experts, why did almost no one realize it was about to happen?

Peter Schiff: That's classic Groupthink. When everyone thinks the same way, they instinctively reject any voice challenging their beliefs. I often say it's "cognitive dissonance": they build a mental wall that nothing I say can penetrate because accepting it would overturn their worldview, career paths, and vested interests. No one is willing to admit that I am right.

And since no one else is saying it, and it's only me saying it, they are more inclined to conclude: how could this guy from a small company be right when Harvard economists, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street banks, and the President's Council of Economic Advisers are all wrong? So, they would rather believe that I am wrong.

However, now I see the same psychological structure in the Bitcoin community: faith in Bitcoin has become part of one's identity, a wholehearted commitment, unwillingness to listen to any criticism, with all opposing views being "shot down." So when I say "Bitcoin will crash," they react just like those people did years ago when they heard me say "the banks will fail, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will go bankrupt"—with laughter and disbelief, saying, "Impossible." And all I can say is: This is exactly what will happen.

Host: To be fair, you started warning about the crisis back in 2006, and two years later, it indeed happened; but you have been against Bitcoin for over a decade.

Peter Schiff: In fact, I started warning about the risks in the financial system as early as 2002 or 2003. By then, I had already seen the Federal Reserve push interest rates too low and identified the problems lurking in the real estate and mortgage markets. By 2006, I was speaking out more frequently and more vigorously, appearing in the media more often, so the time point most people remember is 2006 or 2007. But yes, the Bitcoin bubble has indeed lasted longer than the real estate bubble. The time I have criticized Bitcoin has been even longer than the time I criticized subprime mortgages and the housing market. Because its lifespan has been artificially extended, many people may think, "Surely you must be wrong this time? It should have burst by now."

In my view, there have been several times when the "breakdown" was close at hand. One very successful thing the crypto community has done is to bring Wall Street in—spot/ETF, MicroStrategy's "financial leverage + financing coordination," various forms of structured leverage, all have extended the market. They have also worked hard to bring Trump and his family "into the fold," tying the "crypto czar," the influence of the White House, to provide more fuel for this "pyramid scheme of pumping and dumping."

However, these conditions cannot last indefinitely and will eventually peak and collapse on themselves. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value; all its value comes from speculation, so there must be a continuous influx of newcomers willing to buy at a higher price; once new buyers dry up, the mechanism will fall apart. So they came up with the creed of "buy and hold, don't sell." This rhetoric was actually concocted by early large holders—they wanted to sell themselves but needed others not to sell and to constantly attract new people to join. In the end, the structure will collapse. In fact, perhaps the collapse is already underway.

Just look at some crypto-related stocks: today, I mentioned that the Winklevoss brothers' exchange Gemini, which went public last month, has now dropped about 60% from its high point on the first day; Trump's media company DJT has also fallen by 70% since October. There was also the Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas, where they launched the so-called "Nakamoto" project—I said at the time that it was a pyramid scheme or Ponzi scheme. It started at $30 when it first went public, and now it's only $0.7.

This is a snapshot of a bubble: Everything seems to be holding up, but the collapse has already begun.

Host: Have you ever thought about how many times you've mentioned "Bitcoin" on the show and social media in the past decade? To some extent, you've also been "promoting it," right?

Peter Schiff: It is still alive and now boasts a "trillion-dollar" market cap. Look at the extent to which the financial media has been infiltrated—turn on CNBC, and crypto content is almost all over the screen. I even suggest they rename it to "Crypto News" or "Bitcoin Channel."

Host: Fairly speaking, it has been one of the best-performing assets in the past decade, and the media also has a duty to "inform the audience," doesn't it?

Peter Schiff: When they lose all their money, the audience might turn around and sue the media. Look at who's buying ads, who's sponsoring—cryptocurrency projects have bought a lot of commercial airtime. The platforms almost don't allow any negative talk about Bitcoin.

Host: But you speak out almost every day, and you often appear on CNBC.

Peter Schiff: I can hardly get on now. They've stopped inviting me, largely because of my negative stance on Bitcoin. Sponsors would say: we're spending money on advertising, but don't let Peter Schiff come and spoil it.

Host: People in the Bitcoin community actually "welcome" you to the show—they need an antagonist to solidify their position. Well, the last big question: you predicted the 2008 crisis, how did you operate that year? Do you have any similar references now?

Peter Schiff: In 2008, I was mostly beaten up. The only thing that made money was my "subprime short" in 2007, which I cashed out before the crisis. But at that time, I was holding a lot of gold stocks and foreign stocks, which saw a bigger drop in 2008 than the overall U.S. stock market.

However, in 2009, they rebounded even stronger, and I recovered most of the losses (not counting the short profit). What I did well then was to position myself for the "dollar crisis" after the "financial crisis." Look at my first book, Crash Proof (how to profit from the coming economic collapse), the idea was clear: the financial crisis erupts, the mortgage and real estate collapse, banks fail, and post-Fannie and Freddie trouble, the government would start printing money (later called quantitative easing). I judged it would trigger a dollar and bond market crisis, and the gold price would soar. In reality, my direction was right, but the timing was wrong. Gold did surge to $1900, but then fell back; the dollar first fell and then rose. The Fed successfully inflated the bubble even more—stocks, real estate, bonds, and even crypto assets, all turned into bubbles. I call it the "Everything Bubble."

Later, in my book The Real Crash: America's Coming Bankruptcy—How to Save Yourself and Your Country, I emphasized that the financial crisis of 2008 was not the "real crash" I was concerned about; the real crash would involve the U.S. dollar and bonds. It has not materialized yet, but I believe it is getting closer. The renewed strength in the price of gold is a red flag. It is akin to the signal of the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007—back then, everyone was saying it was "contained," but the whole world got sucked in. Today, many people see the rise in the price of gold merely as a "thematic stock" or a "momentum stock," without understanding the underlying implications.

In my view, this is actually telling us that the world is losing confidence in the U.S. dollar. The U.S. dollar crisis that should have erupted many years ago is now looming.

Host: Earlier, you mentioned the "everything bubble." Is gold now in a bubble as well?

Peter Schiff: No. It has indeed risen rapidly recently, going from $3,500 to $4,400 and then quickly falling back, experiencing a single-day drop of over 6.5%. But it is far from being in a "bubble."

Let me give you an example from our company, SchiffGold: our sales have not been particularly high over the past two years. Although there has been some improvement in recent weeks, during the period when the price of gold went from $2,000 to $4,000, we did not experience a so-called "gold rush." Our busiest year was during the 2020 pandemic—people were panicking and buying gold. However, over the past two years, people have not been afraid; they have been more interested in buying Bitcoin and tech stocks.

The real big buyers now are central banks. They are not speculators looking to buy low and sell high; they are treating gold as a long-term reserve asset because their confidence in the U.S. dollar is declining. From an asset allocation perspective, the allocation to gold and related stocks (including mining stocks) in pension funds, endowments, and hedge funds is probably only around 2%, well below historical averages.

If this is considered a bubble, then the "bubble" should have burst already—yet the reality is quite the opposite. The images of people "lining up to buy gold" that you see on social media, I suspect many of them are actually lining up to sell jewelry for cash. Here, during the rise in gold prices, many of our longstanding clients have chosen to sell when prices are high. This is more like a rational settlement rather than widespread excitement.

From last year to this year, both gold ETFs and gold mining stock ETFs have seen net outflows. In the gold market, fear outweighs greed, while in the Bitcoin market, almost all I see is greed—constantly shouting "it's going to a million, to tens of millions," which is a typical "all-in narrative": if you don't buy, get ready to be poor. On the gold side, there is no such collective delusion.

Host: Do you think the blockchain industry has ever produced any "positive byproduct"? Do you like stablecoins? Do you like smart contracts? For example, prediction markets like Polymarket, do you think they are valuable?

Peter Schiff: A few years ago, a friend and I created an Ordinals NFT on Bitcoin called "Golden Triumph" — the artwork depicted a hand holding up a gold bar, somewhat jokingly as a "face-off with Bitcoin": the ultimate triumph belongs to gold. This NFT came with a signed limited edition print. The original oil painting didn't sell, but the prints sold out, and someone later flipped it on Magic Eden.

Overall, I am not optimistic about the NFT craze. Its outcome was as I expected — a short-lived hype followed by a rapid decline. Over a decade ago, someone told me that "blockchain would change everything," but to this day, it has had almost no substantial impact on my life. I haven't put my car title or property deed on the chain, nor do I trade stocks on the chain.

When you mention examples like Polymarket, I don't think blockchain is necessarily needed to achieve that. The internet immediately changed my life when it came out — I don't have to buy its stock to use its product; whereas blockchain/bitcoin has almost zero daily impact on me.

Ironically, the asset best suited for the chain is actually gold. Many people who criticize gold like to ask: do you have to scrape crumbs off a gold bar to weigh them to buy a cup of coffee? Yet, the world has functioned under the gold standard for thousands of years, and we could easily transact with gold even without the technology we have today. With blockchain today, it's even simpler: store the gold in a custodian, tokenize ownership, hold the token representing gold in your wallet, transfer ownership on the blockchain instantly, transparently, at low cost, and verifiably.

Now, onto stablecoins. They are pegged to the dollar, which is not stable — it devalues over time; and the interest from stablecoins goes to the issuer, not the token holders. It is the worst way to "hold dollars": you hold a non-interest-bearing token pegged to a depreciating currency. It's better to tokenize gold, anchoring the "stability" to gold. It can achieve what bitcoin promises but cannot deliver: a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a value store.

I am highly likely to create my own gold token: We are building a platform for SchiffGold, where users can buy gold on a mobile app, with physical gold stored by us and owned by the user; users can transfer ownership of gold within the app for payments and also redeem the physical gold, and in the future, redeem the on-chain tokens. Additionally, we plan to provide a debit card linked to gold and silver, where if you swipe for $10, the system sells an equivalent value of gold to settle the payment. Of course, ideally, if the other party also agrees to accept gold, we can settle directly in gold.

Some people have questioned the "counterparty risk." My view is: Capitalism is inherently full of counterparty relationships—insurance, custody, they all work this way. For example, Brinks has been in business for over 160 years, specializing in gold custody, and has never lost a single gram of gold in its history; this is the accumulation of brand and reputation. You can't say "gold is not good" just because there is a counterparty.

As for whether this is "blockchain/DeFi/RWA," it can be on-chain, but it doesn't have to be. I am more concerned about the value of gold itself, with the token being just a more convenient vehicle. I also hope that it is interoperable across multiple chains, and when users transfer on-chain, they should pay the Gas fee for each respective chain; but if it's just a transfer among SchiffGold users, there is no need to go on-chain, and there are no additional fees.

There are already similar products in the market, such as Tether's Tether Gold. By the way, I have been holding onto a domain name related to "gold," and back then, I thought Tether would come to buy it, but they didn't. Now, if you visit that domain, it will directly redirect to SchiffGold.

Host: Do you still hold any Bitcoin now? Including the part left from the sale of Ordinals NFT back then?

Peter Schiff: I don't hold the part that was sold from the sale of Ordinals. However, I do have some Bitcoin, around a third of a Bitcoin in an old wallet, but I haven't been able to access it for many years, so it's essentially inaccessible. Besides that, I did a somewhat "tongue-in-cheek" project called "Bitcoin Strategic Reserve." It was because when Trump announced the establishment of a "Bitcoin Strategic Reserve," I followed suit and created one.

I made the wallet address public, initially using Coinbase's address, then later, to allow everyone to see the transactions directly, I bought another cold wallet and transferred that part of the "strategic reserve" into it. So technically, I do have a "Bitcoin Strategic Reserve" and a "small crypto stash," just like the U.S. government. But the key point is: I have never spent a dime of my own money; all those coins were donated by others. I also promised—never to touch them. The last time I checked, there were probably six to seven thousand dollars in Bitcoin and a few hundred dollars in other altcoins, mainly ones like Solana, that's about it.

In summary, I have never used my own funds to buy even a tiny bit of Bitcoin. Even the batch that was later "lost" was all gifts from others. It all started when Anthony Pompliano (@APompliano) once said he wanted to give me $100 worth of Bitcoin, and I told him I didn't have a wallet, so he couldn't send it.

A little further back, I should have just finished a Bitcoin debate with Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees), and after the debate, we went to have dinner together. He and another friend helped me set up a wallet on my phone (it seemed to be an app like Crypto.com), and then, to demonstrate, they sent me around $100 worth of Bitcoin. I immediately sent back $50, so when I left the restaurant, I still had $50 worth of Bitcoin in my wallet.

They gave me a PIN but did not provide me with a recovery phrase or password. So, I used that PIN alone for many years. Later on, at a conference, someone bought my book using Ethereum or Bitcoin, and the coins in my wallet gradually accumulated to a few hundred dollars. After that, I gave that address to Pompliano to send me some coins, but he didn't, however, other people kept sending me coins, and in the end, I had about one-third of a Bitcoin. At that time, the price of Bitcoin was around ten thousand dollars, and later, it rose even higher.

One morning, I woke up and found that the PIN was no longer working. I said, "I didn't forget my password; it was the wallet that forgot my password," and everyone laughed at me. But the truth was—I didn't even know the password; I only had the PIN.

I contacted Erik Voorhees and also reached out to the wallet company, but they couldn't find my account information. I had no recovery phrase, no password, nothing at all. Later, the wallet company did a version update that required a new password, and my PIN was no longer valid. So that's it; those coins were permanently inaccessible.

Let me make it clear: all those bitcoins were donations from others, including the bitcoins in what I now call my "strategic reserve," and I have never spent my own money on them. I won't touch them; they will just be there—whether they rise or fall, I intend to sink with this ship.

Host: The Bitcoin you received five or six years ago, which you can't access now, has outperformed the gold you've held for over thirty years.

Peter Schiff: More or less. Since I received that Bitcoin, it has roughly increased tenfold. When I bought gold, the price was not even $300, and now it has risen to over $4,000, also exceeding tenfold.

Of course, if all the money I should have invested in gold and gold mining stocks over these twenty years had been used early on to buy Bitcoin—today, I might have already been a "multi-billionaire." But that rests on one condition: I have never sold. And the reality is, I couldn't do that. With my investment personality, I would definitely sell in stages on the way up.

There are indeed many people around me who have made a fortune on Bitcoin, are now very wealthy, and some even have more money than I do. However, I believe that they will eventually give back a significant portion of their profits.

Some people are more rational, cashing out a lot at the peak. This is my advice to any holder: Even if you don't sell everything, you should take some profits to secure gains. You can sell a portion first, exchange it for other assets. Spend some money, enjoy the fruits of your gains; then take another portion to buy gold, silver, real estate, or high-quality dividend-paying stocks.

Don't put all your wealth on one fantasy—“Bitcoin will definitely rise to one million, or even ten million.” If you wake up one day to find it at zero, that feeling will be terrible. You can't go back and start over. Young people are fine; they have a whole life ahead of them to start over. But for older people, most of their lives are already behind them—they don't have that much time to start over.

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