The problem I have with gold bugs who advocate a gold backed currency such as Rickards and Schiff is that gold backed currency has been tried and failed. It failed because of a central point of failure and in the US this central point of failure is the federal reserve and it failed to maintain a dollar peg to gold.  Einstein's definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."  By that definition, all gold bugs who want a gold backed currency are insane because it has been tried and failed miserably.  Don't try it again.  Bitcoiners are the sane ones for trying something different.

A gold backed digital currency would be great but these three conditions cannot exist simultaneously for money:
1.  Digital
2.  Backed by gold
3.  No third party risk (no central point of failure - decentralized)

The next best thing is to have 1 and 3 exist simultaneously, which leaves us with bitcoin.