"In turbulent economic times, gold's appeal to the investor centers on the fact that it's supply is limited and not subject to the political decisions of a country's leadership. Bitcoin presents the same appeal, while not causing abuses, rewarding corruption, promoting militarization and eroding indigenous rights around the world," Ms. Saunders writes.

Bitcoin has many fans among gold bugs, despite the innate contradiction of a fiat currency made out of bits appealing to those who hoard a physical object with practical use and tend to invoke those two characteristics as evidence of gold's superiority to the dollar, another fiat currency. But the digital currency's independence from government and the fact that its absolute supply is limited by the underlying algorithm appeal to those with eroding faith in dead paper presidents.