It’s hard to tell who was the first to coin — pun intended — Bitcoin (BTC) as “digital gold,” underlining the idea that Bitcoin is a good store of value. The phrase possibly came into more widespread use after The New York Times journalist Nathaniel Popper's book, "Digital Gold," was published in 2015. Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) searches for the term “Bitcoin digital gold” peaked in December 2017, when the leading cryptocurrency’s price hit record highs around $20,000 per coin.
For thousands of years of human history, people have used precious metals — namely copper, silver and gold — to fulfill the main functions of money: a unit of account, a medium of exchange and a store of value.