Breaking the encryption on bitcoin is like the hunt for the philosopher's stone. We know it's possible to transmute elements into gold, but doing it on a scale capable of disrupting the market is beyond our reach currently.

gold also has an offline mode, worldwide adoption and a commercial use. plus whats exactely the difference between bitcoin and all other altcoins other than technicalities. sooner or later there will be lots of competition

Like there's huge competition to ebay.

Another is that gold does not require a working computer or Internet access; and also, no matter how bad your website security is, your gold cannot be taken via the Internet.

Gold requires social network to work. Can be stolen via internet if you don't hold it youself and the company that holds if for you has web interface.

You can also hold gold and make useful items out of it.

Really? Like what?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Applications

Gold seems not to be the best choice of materials for very many things.

It's valued because it's pretty and rare. That's basically it.

Holding it physically is an anachronism. Most people who own gold don't put it in a vault in their basement.

That computer that you're using most likely has some gold in it.

Computer does not need tons of gold. Tons of gold are working as a decentralized ledger of wealth, just like Bitcoin. They are being stored in vaults, not used in producing things. Computers and other things are getting a small fraction of all gold.

I see your point. We are comparing a specific sequence of bits to a physical earthly material. Not really the same thing.

The bet is that advantages of Bitcoin over risks of gold outweight risks of Bitcoin and advantages of gold.

Today 90% of the economy needs connection and international trade. We rely on networks, computers and cryptography to support our lifestyle, remote labor, airplane travels and so on. Gold is almost useless for that. It's not programmable, it's not transferrable easily, there's a lot of risk and we all tried it already and we ended up with central banks having all the gold, promising none of the gold and printing tons of paper money which is backed by a promise to pay interest by issuing more of these promises. Small guys can't earn a lot of gold. It's way too easy to confiscate or control for someone who is bigger than you.

It's time to try something different, more suitable for modern era.

Gold has kept it's value for thousands of years, maybe tens of thousands. It's a bit silly to compare the two.

Paper also had great value for document storage for thousands of years.

It's better to compare gold with horses an bitcoin with railroads.

The internet was around for 20 years and paper books for centuries. Who needs paper anymore? You can sign contracts with a digital signature in a more secure manner than with a drop of an ink.