Peter Schiff Counters Musk-Saylor Bitcoin Claims – ‘You Turn Valuable Energy Into Nothing’

• In a post on X, Schiff compared Bitcoin with gold, which he says turns energy into a physically useful and versatile metal.
• Schiff’s critique reflects his decade-long skepticism of Bitcoin’s intrinsic utility.

Gold advocate Peter Schiff renewed his criticism of Bitcoin (BTC) on Monday, responding to a video of Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared by Michael Saylor. 

In the clip, Musk said, “Energy is the true currency. Bitcoin is based on energy.” Schiff countered, stating that Bitcoin isn't based on energy. According to him, energy is wasted to create Bitcoin. 

“When you use energy to mine gold, you turn energy into an extremely useful metal. With Bitcoin, you turn valuable energy into nothing,” Schiff wrote on X.

Bitcoin’s price has fallen over 5% in the last 24 hours, trading at around $86,400 on Monday morning. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around the apex cryptocurrency fell to ‘bearish’ from ‘neutral’ over the past day amid ‘low’ levels of chatter. Bitcoin’s price is down more than 7.5% this year. 

Meanwhile, the SDPR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) rose nearly 1% in pre-market trade. Retail sentiment around the fund trended in ‘neutral’ territory over the past day. Gold prices have gained more than 62% this year. 

Power Generation As Future De Facto Currency

Musk also emphasized energy scarcity and utility, saying, “You can’t legislate energy, you can’t just pass a law and say you have a lot of energy. It’s very difficult to generate energy to do useful work.”

“We won’t have money. We’ll have power generation as the de facto currency,” Musk stated.

Schiff Frames Debate Around Intrinsic Utility

Schiff’s post reflects his decade-long skepticism of Bitcoin for its lack of intrinsic value. He has frequently compared Bitcoin with precious metals like gold, which not only serve as a store of value but also have industrial and practical applications.

The economist has consistently argued that, while scarce, digital assets do not provide tangible utility, making them less defensible as a long-term store of value than metals backed by physical demand. “Bitcoin’s value is purely subjective, as it has no utility beyond belief,” he wrote in another post on Monday. 

In fact, Schiff has an upcoming debate with Binance co-founder Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao in Dubai at the Binance Blockchain Week later this week to discuss the value of Bitcoin versus the value of tokenized gold.

Read also: BTC Price Rebounds After ETF Flows Turn Positive – Solana Outperforms While Binance Coin, Ethereum Slide

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.

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