CZ and gold advocate Peter Schiff engage in a heated debate, with Schiff asking CZ for a gold bar on the spot.

Author: Frank, PANews

In the closing session of Binance Blockchain Week, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) engaged in a face-to-face in-depth debate with renowned “Bitcoin skeptic” and gold advocate Peter Schiff. During the conversation, the two had an intense discussion about gold and Bitcoin from multiple dimensions, including store of value, transaction attributes, and currency form.

Surprisingly, Peter Schiff, the economist who has long criticized cryptocurrencies, took the stage with his own “tokenization project.”

Bitcoin Opponent Steps Into the “Tokenization” Arena

The opening of the debate was quite dramatic. Despite being on CZ’s so-called “home turf” with the audience full of cryptocurrency supporters, Peter Schiff showed no signs of stage fright. More interestingly, the debate didn’t start with fierce accusations, but rather with an unexpected “consensus”: the tokenization of gold.

At the beginning of the debate, CZ pointed out that although Peter Schiff has opposed cryptocurrencies for many years, he now seems to be working on a gold tokenization project. Peter Schiff readily confirmed this fact and enthusiastically introduced his new project to the audience: a product that tokenizes gold through notes.

At the end of Peter Schiff’s project introduction, CZ raised a more formal question: “So, what I’m hearing is that, in some ways, tokenized gold is almost better than gold itself, because it’s divisible, transferable, portable, and serves as a medium of exchange.” This question directly challenged Peter Schiff’s previous criticisms of cryptocurrencies, marking the official start of the debate.

Facing CZ’s challenge, Peter Schiff demonstrated a high level of debating skill. He admitted, “In terms of monetary utility, that’s true,” and said that this kind of gold note practice has existed since ancient times, but now it can be digitized to represent “gold ownership” in a new way. This opening set a subtle tone for the whole debate: both sides recognize the utility of technology, but fundamentally disagree on the “source of value.”

Peter Schiff then shifted the focus, stating that both current fiat and Bitcoin are “backed by nothing” and are essentially air. Tokenized gold, on the other hand, is legitimate because it is backed by physical metal. Bitcoin’s value comes purely from “belief.”

CZ countered that the internet, Google, and Twitter are all virtual, with no physical entity, yet they have tremendous value. Although Bitcoin does not exist physically (just as records on a ledger), its value comes from utility, scarcity, and global consensus.

CZ then directly attacked gold’s weakness—not being portable. On site, CZ took out a 1-kilogram physical gold bar (worth about $130,000) given to him by an important figure from Kyrgyzstan.

When CZ offered the gold bar for Schiff to verify its authenticity, Schiff demonstrated a gold enthusiast’s “caution”: “The color looks a little off… If I don’t know the mint’s name, I can’t confirm if this is real gold—I’d have to test it.” Schiff even joked about whether the gold bar could be given to him as a gift.

This segment became the highlight of the event and vividly exposed the pain points of physical assets.

CZ then launched a sharp counterattack: “If I give you a Bitcoin right now, we can instantly verify on-chain that you received it. But with this gold bar, even an expert like you can’t immediately tell if it’s real, and I can’t easily take it across a border.”

Value Discussion: What Is Real Money?

The middle part of the debate moved to the most fundamental theoretical clash: what is real money?

CZ pointed out that although gold is scarce, we don’t actually know the true supply, and in the future, there could be some kind of “alchemy” that makes gold unlimited. But Bitcoin has only 21 million coins, a mechanism everyone understands. From this perspective, Bitcoin’s “money” attribute—its scarcity—is beyond doubt.

Peter Schiff, however, argued that while Bitcoin is scarce, the number of newly issued tokens in the world is unlimited. He then mentioned that Bitcoin’s current use is mainly speculative, with very few people actually using Bitcoin as money.

The two then shifted the topic to another aspect of these assets as “money”: payments. On the meaning of payments, CZ tried to demonstrate that cryptocurrency is already being used for payments by showcasing the Binance Card. Schiff countered that this merely converts Bitcoin into fiat for merchants; users are actually “cashing out” rather than using Bitcoin directly as currency.

CZ responded that, from the user experience, it is payment and solves the issue of merchant acceptance. He shared a story about an African user: before cryptocurrency, it took three days of walking to pay a bill; now it takes just three minutes. This is the real utility of Bitcoin as a technology.

Bitcoin Investment Returns Fall Short of Gold?

When the topic shifted to investment returns, the exchange became heated.

Peter Schiff threw out a striking statistic: denominated in gold, Bitcoin’s current price is 40% lower than four years ago. He argued that despite countless positives over the past four years—ETFs, Super Bowl ads, El Salvador adopting Bitcoin as legal tender—Bitcoin hasn’t broken past its highs, signaling the bubble has burst. He defined Bitcoin as “pure speculation,” with buyers playing the greater fool game. Even when CZ pointed out that over a longer period, Bitcoin’s returns from $0.05 to $100,000 far exceeded gold’s, Peter Schiff seemed to deliberately ignore this.

CZ then asked Peter Schiff whether he would prefer Bitcoin or gold. Peter Schiff made a controversial remark: “It’s a good thing that young people lose money on Bitcoin, because it’s a valuable lesson. It’s better to lose money when you’re young than when you’re old; it’ll teach them how to invest wisely in the future.”

CZ humorously responded: “I know many people who bought Bitcoin early; now they’ve made hundreds of millions or even billions. They’re my neighbors, thanks to selling some Bitcoin to buy homes there.”

CZ then downplayed short-term volatility, emphasizing that over a long period, Bitcoin has gone from being worthless to tens of thousands of dollars—a huge success. He argued that labeling the entire ecosystem as “speculators” is inaccurate, as there are also many builders and real users.

Schiff even predicted that since gold has broken out of a 12-year sideways trend and started to rise, future investors would sell Bitcoin and return to gold, causing Bitcoin’s price to crash. CZ was noncommittal, calling that the “agree to disagree” part.

Despite their opposite views, the debate remained focused on value throughout. While Schiff was sharp-tongued, calling Bitcoin holders “people in a casino,” he also admitted he was wrong in his previous Bitcoin price predictions (he didn’t expect it to rise so much).

As the host, CZ showed great tolerance. Not only did he offer to arrange a debate between Schiff and Michael Saylor (MicroStrategy founder), he also graciously wished Schiff’s gold tokenization project success:

CZ: “Welcome to the blockchain and digital world. Of course, I have a completely different view—I think gold will do well, but Bitcoin will do even better.”

There was no absolute winner in this debate. It was more like a snapshot of the times: traditional physical assets are striving to adapt to the digital wave, while emerging digital assets are working hard to prove their monetary attributes amid skepticism.

As Schiff said on stage: “The room is small, but there are many more people upstairs.” Whether it’s gold or Bitcoin, both are vying for the broader financial future “upstairs.”