Bitcoin is similar to Gold as a resource: it brings back sound money from the clutches of central banks, who are incentivized to inflate centrally owned currency and take tax to enrich themselves.
Fiat money has no real “value”, it was backed by gold until 1971, but no longer. Since then, governments have had free reign to spend as much as they see fit to enrich themselves at the cost of the population (hence the increase in debts to GDP for major countries).
Gold as an asset has many unique properties like the following:
Durability - It is impossible to change gold to anything else. Salability - It is usable anywhere Divisibility - It is possible to divide gold into small pieces Portability - It can be moved from place to place Scarcity - It is relatively scarce, as its supply only increases 1.5% YoY.
The crux of why Gold is such a good currency revolves around its scarcity, however. Because gold is scarce, it is expensive to mine. If demand for gold would increase, miners would have incentive to increase mining for it, thus, trying to drive gold to an equilibrium price. However, because the supply is so limited, there is no way for the supply side to drive its price down (as with many other materials like Silver, Copper, etc.)
Gold’s stock to flow of ~56 achieves this ideal, similar to BTC, which has a stock to flow of ~50 (in 2021), which doubles every 4 years, until 2140.
It fills all of the characteristics of money, with emphasis on portability, since it can be transferred over the wire, so it is infinitely more portable than gold.
Because of this, Bitcoin has the potential to usher in a new era of currency, since it is roughly like gold, but strictly better.
It has a limited and certain supply, as well as a strict schedule for the releases of that supply, which can not be manipulated by miners (if miners get more hardware, future blocks release fewer rewards, capping supply).
Some problems with Bitcoin involve its high volatility (as it has a low market cap), but with its increase in value, its volatility should decrease (just like gold did).