Gold Bug Schiff Calls Bitcoin Fiat Following Fed Comments

Economist, financial commentator and gold advocate Peter Schiff once again bashed Bitcoin in a tweet, essentially calling it fiat currency — the name for regional currencies, such as the U.S. dollar. 

"The Fed gets Bitcoin right," Schiff said in a June 20 tweet, adding:

"It categorizes it with fiat, in contrast to gold that has real value. It sees nothing new in Bitcoin, just in the way it's exchanged. As confidence in both traditional and crypto fiat is lost, savers will return to gold."

The U.S. Fed classified Bitcoin fiat

In a June 18 post, Liberty Street Economics, a blog under the purview of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, posited Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are simply cash in a different form, not a "new type of money" as the crypto industry states. 

The article pointed toward the difference between money itself, and the way in which people transact or use it. "The ability to make electronic exchanges without a trusted party — a defining characteristic of Bitcoin — is radically new," the post said, adding:

"Bitcoin is not a new class of money, it is a new type of exchange mechanism, and this type of exchange mechanism can support a variety of forms of money as well as other types of assets."

Peter Schiff often favors gold

After a number of comments on the subject, Peter Schiff has become known in the crypto space as someone who takes gold over crypto any day. 

After bashing Bitcoin as a store of value in Feb. 25, 2020 tweet, Schiff said: 

“Bitcoin hasn't been around long enough to prove anything other than P.T Barnum right. There's a sucker born every minute and many of them own Bitcoin." 

In April 2020, the economist also projected soaring gold prices and plummeting Bitcoin value for the years ahead. He also called Bitcoin investors fools in March.