A sharp increase in transaction fees on the day of the halving prompted Euro Pacific Capital President Peter Schiff to once again declare the failure of the first cryptocurrency.
The cost to complete a #Bitcoin transaction is now $128 and it takes a half hour to process. This is another reason why Bitcoin can’t function as a digital currency. The cost to actually use Bitcoin as a currency is prohibitively high for almost all transactions. It’s a failure.
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) April 22, 2024
On April 20, amid the reduction of the block reward, the average fee in the network surged to a record $128.45. Experts largely attributed this to the excitement surrounding the launch of the Runes protocol coinciding with the event.
“The cost to complete a transaction is now $128, and it takes half an hour to process. This is another reason why Bitcoin cannot function as a digital currency. The costs of using it in this capacity are prohibitively high. It’s a failure,” Schiff stated.
At the time of writing, the figure had fallen by nearly 73% to $34.86.
In the comments, users asked the well-known gold advocate how much it would cost to safely deliver a pound of the precious metal worldwide. An estimate ranged from $800,000 to $2.3 million, depending on the method and speed.
Remind us how much it costs to transport a bar of gold to the other side of the world in half an hour.
— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) April 22, 2024
“Remind us how much it costs to transport a bar of gold to the other side of the world in half an hour?” co-founder of Casa Jameson Lopp quipped regarding speed.
Schiff responded to his critics, stating that it is irrelevant since people are not currently using precious metals as currency.
That’s irrelevant. People aren’t using gold as a currency right now. But if they wanted to, gold could be tokenized on a block chain. Transaction time would be almost instantaneous and cost minimal. Gold works much better on a block chain than Bitcoin.
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) April 22, 2024
“But if they wanted to, it could be tokenized on a blockchain. Transaction time would be almost instantaneous, and the cost minimal. Gold works much better on a blockchain than Bitcoin,” Schiff emphasized.
Earlier in April, the founder of Euro Pacific Capital described how the first cryptocurrency would face “the biggest crash in history” due to spot ETFs.