Bitcoin is better than gold? Crypto soars as the yellow metal languishes

It was another big week for the most-popular of cryptos, with Bitcoin (BTC-USD) retaking $16K, pushing through $17K, and then moving past $18K on its way to the current $18.6K. That's not quite the all-time high of about $20K set during the 2017 mania, but in a couple of ways, Bitcoin has well-eclipsed what it did that year.First, there's more Bitcoin available today than three years ago, so the current market cap of $345B is nicely higher now. Second, Bitcoin spent only a handful of days above even $10K in 2017 - crossing that level for the first time just before Thanksgiving, and then peaking for good about two weeks later. This year, Bitcoin surpassed $10K in mid-summer and has spent nearly all the time since above that mark.Institutional acceptance is the major difference this year. In 2017, Charlie Munger called Bitcoin "worthless, artificial gold," and Warren Buffett described it