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With a 94 percent year-to-date gain, and a single "coin" now worth $1,843, bitcoin has been on a helluva run lately.

Theincrease in the cost of the massively-volatile electronic tokens has led to many comparisons with that other favorite outsider "currency'' gold recently.

True, a unit of Bitcoin passed the dollar value of one troy ounce of gold this year, and is now more than $600 higher.

But the daily swings in the digitally created asset have been vast. Evenduring the huge run up this year, it has movedmore than fivepercent on 21different days, with nine of those being moves lower. Gold on the other hand, has been much more stable.

Volatility aside, there is amajor problem with gold as a comparator for the software-based unit.

Nobody thinks comparing one shareof Apple Inc. current price around $155 with one shareof, for example, outdoor lighting company Acuity Brands Inc. current price around $178 is valid. It certainly does not show that Acuity (market cap $7.9 billion) is worth more than Apple (market cap $814 billion).

By the time the supply of new bitcoins ends, sometime after the year 2110, there will be 21 million bitcoins in (digital) existence, meaning the total value of all of the electronictokens that will ever exist, at today's market price, is just under $39 billion. According to the World Gold Council, total gold stocks amount to approximately six billion troy ounces, or $7.3 trillion at today's price.

To put it another way, in order for bitcoin to be worth more than gold, a one 'coin' would have to trade at $347,000 in order for 'bitcoin worth more than gold' to be a defensible statement.

Must dash now, one bitcoin is about be worth more than one aluminum future...

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And a Bitcoin Is Now Worth... - Bloomberg