Is it called differently? The forum section is called "mining". The programs are miners, etc.

But anyway, bitcoin is very far from gold. A lump of gold conducts electricity very well, does not corrode, is a good catalyst and you can make w nice shiny ring out of it. Bitcoin is neither. Bitcoin is absolutely non-physical. Face it: bitcoin is fiat. But Bitcoin is not an ordinary fiat. Bitcoin is decentralized. This is the only truly novel feature of Bitcoin because finite supply is non-novel, there are a lot of finite supply tokens (e.g, collectors coins).