The answer for why Bitcoin instead of Gold or stocks or whatever comes down to trust and logistics. Take Gold for example you have to have to either ship the gold around which is expensive and slow or have a trusted third party store the gold and handle netting out the transactions between entities or accept delayed payment and trust that the counter party will deliver the underlying asset. Bitcoin does not require trust in anything except the math underlying the system.
> Bitcoin does not require trust in anything except the math underlying the system.
False. It requires trust in the liquidity of bitcoin. If you can't convert bitcoin to local currency, it has no value. Bitcoin's fragility is in its ability to act as a holder of value, as repeatedly show by speculative price swinging (sometimes without apparent cause).
Gold, for all its faults, has a huge track record as a value store.
