Bitcoin Value Transfers Over Physical Gold is a Crucial Use Case

This week, an aviation cargo container containing an estimated $15 million in gold and valuables reportedly went missing from Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. Could they have transferred this value with ‘digital gold’ or Bitcoin instead?

According to reports, the onus of the $15 million theft can’t be pinned on anyone yet. Notably, the high-value crime occurred after unloading the aircraft and transferring the cargo to a holding facility.

Stephen Duivesteyn of Peel Regional Police informed CNN that the high-value container was illegally removed.

Meanwhile, whether this was the work of professional thieves or an inside job is unclear. Either way, it begs the question: Is there an easier and more secure way to send value around the world? Many advocates of Bitcoin will tell you that there’s a simple answer to that question.

High-Value Bitcoin Transactions

In 2020, a user paid a fee of only $0.26 to move almost 107,000 Bitcoins worth $670 million at the time. The transaction costs and logistics of trying to make a transfer this size through a bank would surely frustrate anyone.

A mysterious crypto wallet also transferred nearly $1 billion in Bitcoin to an anonymous wallet in 2021.

This month, a $500 million transaction occurred on the Bitcoin blockchain, with the sender paying slightly over $100 in fees.

In 2023, the debate over whether Bitcoin could someday overtake the market cap of physical gold is still ongoing.

Will Bitcoin Ever Overtake Gold?

The quantity of Bitcoin is limited to 21 million. Meanwhile, gold is a natural resource with no such restrictions.

However, Bitcoin’s regulatory ambiguity could affect its future worth. BTC’s market value today has topped $540 billion. In comparison, the estimated market cap for gold is $13 trillion.

The advantages, though, outweigh the drawbacks. Bitcoin transfers are faster because they do not need any physical transfers like gold. With that, there is no need for third parties in these transactions, like air cargo.

Additionally, only a professional can determine whether a gold bar is authentic. Or to know if someone replaced it during transportation with lower grade quality. On the other hand, verifying Bitcoin merely needs a few clicks on a public, verifiable network.

Bitcoin’s use of an energy-intensive proof-of-work consensus mechanism has put the king coin in a difficult position in the past decade. Critics raise concerns about the carbon footprint despite the hassle-free transfers. A single Bitcoin transaction, according to Digiconomist, emits 475.50 kgCO2, equal to the carbon footprint of 1,053,881 Visa transactions.

It should be noted that the calculation methods used by Digiconomist have been heavily contested and are misleading, but it does demonstrate that Bitcoin has an environmental impact. It’s interesting how much more expensive it is to move one cargo plane. Per one estimate, flights emit 500 grams of carbon dioxide per metric ton of cargo per kilometer. Arguably, almost 20-30 times higher than the environmental cost of ocean freight.