Chief Economist & Global Strategist Peter Schiff is preparing to launch a tokenized-gold payment system he says will modernize the use of gold as money.
The structure allows customers to buy vaulted, allocated gold and withdraw it physically or in token form.
In a debate with Binance founder Changpeng Zhao at the Binance blockchain week, Schiff described the mechanism as a digital claim check in which “the token represents ownership of gold,” enabling ownership to change hands while the metal remains vaulted.
He argued that tokenization increases gold’s divisibility, portability, and suitability for payments without affecting its underlying value. Gold’s worth, he said, stems from what “you can do with it as a metal,” a quality he believes Bitcoin lacks.
CZ Pushes Back: Bitcoin Already Functions As Money
Zhao countered that Bitcoin has already achieved monetary relevance at global scale. He pointed to widespread usage, infrastructure improvements, and crypto payment rails used in emerging markets.
According to CZ, Bitcoin’s value expands as adoption expands: “When people use it, it has value.”
CZ rejected the view that Bitcoin is purely speculative or without utility, noting that millions of Binance users transact with it and that crypto debit cards effectively convert balances at the point of sale. For everyday users, he argued, Bitcoin already enables practical settlement, regardless of how merchants receive funds.
Also read: Tether Outpaces Central Banks With Record 26-Ton Gold Purchase in Q3
Competing Claims On Store-of-Value and Payment Utility
Schiff insisted the comparison is flawed because Bitcoin must be sold into fiat to complete a transaction.
He maintained that Bitcoin transfers are effectively transfers of “nothing,” while tokenized gold conveys ownership of an asset with industrial and monetary demand. He also repeated his view that Bitcoin’s long-term structure resembles “a decentralized Ponzi scheme,” dependent on continued speculative inflows.
CZ rejected this framing, stating that Bitcoin’s technological properties, liquidity, and global user base separate it from the rest of the crypto market.
He emphasized that “whatever you can do with gold… we can do in Bitcoin,” while acknowledging that tokenized gold could coexist as a separate asset class.
Toward A Future Market Clash: Bitcoin Vs. Tokenized Gold
The exchange highlighted two competing visions of future digital value: decentralized bearer assets like Bitcoin versus commodity-backed tokens anchored in physical reserves. Schiff argued that as inflation accelerates worldwide, merchants will eventually prefer to denominate payments in gold.
CZ, however, maintains that Bitcoin has already reached global escape velocity and will remain the dominant digital monetary network.
Despite their disagreements, CZ invited collaboration, telling Schiff he is open to listing the gold token on Binance, an acknowledgment that tokenized commodities may yet become part of the crypto economy’s future architecture.
Read next: Institutions Expected to Move to Public Blockchains by 2026, Says COTI CFO