Published October 27, 2025
By Anthony Wile, NatGold Founder

The news this week that veteran gold advocate Peter Schiff has challenged former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao to a debate on tokenized gold versus Bitcoin at Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai feels like déjà vu. We watched the same bout a few years ago when Michael Saylor and Frank Giustra faced off in their celebrated Bitcoin-versus-gold debate. That was the heavyweight match; this is the undercard. The talking points will be identical—scarcity, portability, trust, energy use, custody—each side rehearsing its lines from memory. We already know how it ends: both make valid points, both expose the other’s flaws, and neither resolves the contradiction that each alone embodies only half of what sound money should be. That’s where NatGold comes in. It isn’t here to pick a side; it’s here to unify what’s true in both while leaving behind what’s destructive in each.

I’ve discussed this directly with Peter. About a year ago, as he was boarding a cruise, we traded messages over WhatsApp about NatGold. His objection then is the same one he will raise with CZ: that for money to be trusted, its gold backing must be deliverable in physical form. I understand the logic. Physical deliverability historically kept custodians honest by limiting claims to the metal on hand. But that assurance came at a terrible cost. Traditional gold production rips open mountains, pollutes rivers, and enslaves entire communities in illegal operations that feed a global black market worth billions. Vast amounts of the world’s extracted gold originate in unregulated mines linked to cartels and rogue governments—especially throughout Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Once refined, it flows into the same vaults as legitimate supply—indistinguishable, yet morally polluted. To defend that as a requirement for trust is to confuse possession with proof.

And even the supposed sanctity of physical gold in vaults is far from certain. It is estimated that up to ten percent of the world’s “above-ground” gold stored in these vaults is fraudulent—often tungsten-filled bars virtually indistinguishable by sight or weight. This is the flaw of material deliverability: it invites imitation. Gold, when removed from the earth, loses not only its natural context but also its purity of provenance. Verified in-ground gold, by contrast, cannot be counterfeited. Its existence is established scientifically, its quantity measured, and its integrity guaranteed by geological fact rather than by trust in human custody.

NatGold offers proof without possession. Our digital mining process captures the intrinsic monetary value of gold directly from Certified NatGold Resources validated under NI 43-101, JORC, or S-K 1300 standards—the same standards relied upon by mine financiers when determining whether to build the mine to extract the gold. That value in the NatGold digital mining model is tokenized and recorded immutably on blockchain, backed by independent technical, legal, and compliance reviews—not by the movement of metal from earth to vault. The result is a fully verifiable, non-dilutable form of digital gold that preserves the planet and the principle of sound money at once. It is the marriage of gold’s timeless substance and blockchain’s transparent precision. No waste, no violence, no counterparty risk.

The old arguments will play out as they always do: Peter will warn of inflationary abuse without physical redemption; CZ will boast of decentralization and speed; and both will point fingers over whose form of “mining” is dirtier, each claiming moral superiority while defending systems rooted in the same imbalance. Gold’s extraction scars the earth while Bitcoin’s creation devours energy. Even those Bitcoin miners who claim to operate on renewable power still misdirect vast amounts of potential human productivity toward solving algorithms that produce nothing tangible, displacing energy that could otherwise reduce real-world carbon output or power industries that generate lasting value. The debate becomes not about whether damage exists, but which form of damage is more acceptable. Both miss the larger evolution already under way. Gold embodies existence—the eternal, geologically fixed foundation of value. Blockchain embodies flow—the information that allows value to move freely without authority. When joined correctly, they resolve each other’s limitations. NatGold is that resolution, a naturally aligned monetary medium that honors what is real while operating in what is digital. It removes the need for belief because it provides proof; it removes the need for extraction because it recognizes existence as enough.

I don’t claim to have invented this idea. Ideas arrive; we don’t own them. NatGold was something I received more than conceived—a connection between two truths that were always meant to find each other. It represents a quiet understanding that value does not need to be forced from the earth or coaxed from computers. It already exists, waiting to be recognized in its purest form.

So while Peter and CZ debate which imperfect system defines sound money, NatGold quietly embodies it. Gold without destruction. Blockchain without waste. Proof without faith. A monetary system that does not demand that we choose between the past and the future because it reconciles both in the present. That is the conversation worth having, and it starts when we stop arguing over who is right and begin seeing what is possible.

NatGold: It just makes sense.