Bitcoin Critic Peter Schiff Reveals Plans for Tokenized Gold App, Debit Card

Peter Schiff, identified within the crypto business as a Bitcoin critic and gold advocate, introduced that he’s exploring a brand new method to make treasured metallic digital – through blockchain. Schiff revealed his plans for a tokenized gold platform throughout an interview on CounterParty TV posted yesterday, October 23.

The proposed platform features a debit card that permits customers to purchase, maintain and spend tokenized gold, whereas the valuable metallic is stored in vaults. Schiff did not miss a chance to criticize Bitcoin when he defined his upcoming product within the interview:

Schiff described the rising platform as a method to make gold transportable and spendable, permitting customers to handle their tokenized gold in a cellular app, spend fractions through a debit card and switch possession off-chain.

He additionally famous that the platform “will not ship you the precise gold” as a result of the metallic will stay saved in a vault, however customers will be capable to “switch possession of that gold to different individuals” and change their tokenized gold for bodily gold, he stated. Schiff didn’t specify whether or not there shall be geographic or nationwide restrictions on possession or switch.

Tokenized commodities

Tokenized commodity sector by asset. Supply: RWAxyz

Schiff’s platform will enter a fast-growing tokenized commodity sector, which is up greater than 36% previously month, in response to knowledge from RWAxyz. The sector is dominated by two tokenized gold merchandise, Tether Gold (XAUT) and Paxos Gold (PAXG), which collectively account for $2.9 billion in tokenized worth, greater than 80% of the $3.53 billion market.

Schiff’s bullish stance could also be fueled by rising buying and selling volumes in tokenized gold particularly, because the spot worth of gold has risen in current months.

Final month, whole buying and selling quantity of XAUT and PAXG spiked above $16.5 billion, marking an all-time excessive and a 2,760% enhance from January this yr, in response to DefiLlama knowledge.

‘Belief me brother’ token

Whereas particulars had been scarce, Schiff’s plan drew swift and blended reactions from the crypto group.

Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, joked in response to the interview: “Congratulations on simply inventing an ETF,” including that buyers have already got choices like VanEck’s OUNZ and Goldman Sachs’ AAAU, which retailer bodily gold in vaults and let shareholders change their shares for actual gold.

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao — who was pardoned by President Doland Trump yesterday after pleading responsible in November 2023 to repeatedly violating U.S. anti-money laundering rules — criticized Schiff’s proposed product, calling it “not ‘on chain’ gold” and calling it a “belief me bro token” attributable to its reliance on third-party custodians for redemption.

“Tokenizing gold is NOT ‘on chain’ gold. It means trusting a 3rd get together to offer you gold at a later date, even after their administration has modified, maybe a long time later, throughout a conflict, and so forth.,” Zhao wrote on X.

Nonetheless, Zhao’s criticism was put beneath stress when Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy famous in a follow-up response that the identical argument might apply to crypto property packaged by way of centralized entities corresponding to WBTC/cbBTC or SOL on BNB Chain.

“[…] and you may make the identical argument for storing your crypto on centralized exchanges,” Gaevoy added in a direct remark to the CEX founder.

In response to Zhao’s criticism, Schiff publicly challenged him to a debate evaluating Bitcoin and tokenized gold, with the intention of discussing which asset can higher function a medium of change, unit of account, and retailer of worth. Binance’s founder agreed to the controversy, though particulars on when and the place it is going to happen haven’t been confirmed on the time of writing.