‘If You’re Selling BTC for Something, Sell it for Gold Instead of USD’, Says Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino

cryptonews.com:

In an insightful conversation with Cryptonews, Paolo Ardoino, the CTO of both Tether and Bitfinex, shed light on crucial topics relating to the crypto world.

The dialogue navigated the volatile waters of inflation, the allure of gold as a tangible asset, and the growing fascination with digital gold – Bitcoin. 

Ardoino also explained Tether's novel approach toward global transactions and the role of their unique digital gold model.Let's dive in.

As inflation escalates and national currencies depreciate, "the only lifeline to have something tangible in your portfolio is gold," according to Ardoino.

This ancient safe haven asset is finding parallels with its digital counterpart, Bitcoin (BTC).

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic stimulus have inflated global economies, as a result of central banks' mass money printing. 

In fact, a whopping 30% of all USD in circulation was printed in the past three years, Ardoino noted to Cryptonews.com.

Countries like Turkey and Argentina are bearing the brunt of this trend, grappling with severe currency devaluations.

In response, central banks are pivoting to secure assets like gold and, to a lesser extent, Bitcoin.

Both gold and Bitcoin are seen as scarce, hard-to-extract assets, making them attractive, safe assets.

While central banks have a long history of using gold as a reserve asset, Bitcoin remains less understood, and is harder for these institutions to integrate.

“So what they do in this case is go out and try to buy the safest asset that they can hold in their portfolios, and that is gold.”

The shared characteristics of gold and Bitcoin include their scarcity, as well as the extraction difficulty and the cost of their production.

The largest gold buyers are in Asia, said Ardoino,