Market analyst Jesse Eckel said that Bitcoin may have a significant advantage over gold, and this advantage could become increasingly important as scientists continue to make progress in artificially producing this precious metal.
In a post published on X on October 21, Eckel argued that technological breakthroughs may eventually undermine gold's scarcity, while bitcoin's supply will remain mathematically constrained.
“The reality is that lab-grown gold will eventually emerge and become as cheap as diamonds,” Eckel wrote.
“There will never be a lab-grown $BTC,” he added.
His comment was a response to an unexpected announcement by the San Francisco-based startup Marathon Fusion, which claimed to have made a breakthrough in converting mercury into real gold.
Scientists make progress in artificial gold
On October 21, Marathon Fusion announced that it had successfully demonstrated what it calls high-speed alchemy.
Last month, we demonstrated high-speed alchemy: converting mercury into real, stable gold, breaking CERN’s record by a factor of 10,” the company said.
The startup also claims to have developed a powerful plasma centrifuge capable of isotope enrichment, surpassing a Soviet-era record that has stood for 40 years.
Marathon Fusion is currently building a fusion reactor in San Francisco to achieve record-breaking power density.
However, its gold production ambitions have attracted significant attention.
In 2025, the company outlined a process that could theoretically produce approximately 5,000 kilograms of gold per year in a gigawatt-scale fusion power plant.
The proposed technology uses high-energy neutrons to convert specific mercury isotopes into gold through nuclear transmutation.
However, commercially viable large-scale production remains far off. The company’s latest experimental claims do not demonstrate that artificial gold can be produced at low cost or at an industrial scale.
Why the scarcity of Bitcoin might differ
Eckel's argument touches on one of the core narratives surrounding Bitcoin's long-term investment appeal: its predictable scarcity.
Unlike gold, whose total supply can increase due to new discoveries, technological advancements, or even nuclear transmutation, Bitcoin has a maximum supply of approximately 21 million coins.
The issuance of this cryptocurrency follows a predetermined schedule, with mining rewards approximately halving every four years.
Any attempt to increase the Bitcoin supply above the established limit requires modifying the network's consensus rules.