Letter: Bitcoin loses its lustre next to gold bullion

Published in the Financial Times.

Your editorial, “Bitcoin’s bounceback déjà vu” (FT View, December 6), is oh so right that bitcoin “has no intrinsic value, nor is it backed by anything” and is different from gold. Indeed, a mere electronic accounting entry like a bitcoin is utterly unlike a gold coin — the gold coin being a notable piece of physical reality, not dependent on anybody’s accounting system to exist. Yet at the top of your page one of December 5, illustrating your story, “Bets on cuts boost bitcoin”, you misleadingly depict bitcoin precisely as a large gold coin stamped with a “B.” This silly illustration promotes the fallacy that bitcoin is like a gold coin and flatly contradicts the sound and sensible statements of your editorial.

I suggest that FT policy should eliminate depicting bitcoin as a gold coin. Of course, it is difficult to illustrate bitcoin as the mere electronic accounting entry it is, but you should try to reflect the reality.

Alex J Pollock Senior Fellow, Mises Institute,

Lake Forest, IL, US