As gold reached new highs above $3,500, Peter Schiff — a prominent gold advocate and Bitcoin critic — argued that the precious metal is money, fueling backlash from the crypto community.

“Gold is not just any commodity, it’s money,” Schiff wrote in an X post on April 22 after gold prices briefly broke above $3,500.

While praising gold, Schiff sounded the alarm about the state of the economy, emphasizing that gold’s abnormal rally in the past few weeks holds negative implications for the US dollar.

Source: Peter Schiff

“This is the end of the US dollar’s dominance. Life in America is about to change in ways few can imagine,” he stated.

Gold is up 31% YTD, USD is down 9%

Schiff’s comments came amid gold futures surging to a record-breaking $3,500 on April 22, while spot gold has yet to touch the milestone after reaching $3,498 on Tuesday, according to TradingView.

Since the beginning of 2025, spot gold has gained as much as 31.6% of value, while its one-year price is up more than 44%.

Spot gold (XAU) price chart since Jan. 1, 2025. Source: TradingView

The US dollar has seen a notable decline year-to-date, with the US Dollar Index (DXY) tumbling more than 9% in 2025, based on TradingView data.

Community questions gold as “money”

Schiff’s observations on the state of the US dollar in the context of gold’s rally have received some traction on social media, but many commentators have questioned whether the term “money” corresponds to gold.

Some crypto community members specifically highlighted that gold fails to serve as a viable payment method, one of the four foundational functions of money.

“I shaved a bit off my gold bar at Starbucks this morning. They accepted it as payment. First time in a while,” cryptocurrency advocate Mike Alfred responded in Schiff’s X thread, referring to gold being rarely used as a method of payment.

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Unlike gold, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) are able to serve the payment use case, many posters stressed.

“I paid for my haircut last week in Bitcoin,” one commentator said, adding:

“Merchants won’t accept gold because how do they test if it’s real?”

Amid the ongoing gold rally, the narrative of gold versus “digital gold” Bitcoin has been on the rise. According to Cathie Wood, a major Bitcoin bull and ARK Invest founder, Bitcoin is a “much bigger idea than gold,” and has a potential to gain from gold’s $23 trillion market.

Others believe that gold and Bitcoin should not be seen as competitors because the assets are different in their nature and have different missions.

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