Is Bitcoin the new gold?

Financial and commodity markets analytics

The Price of Bitcoin has surged around 20 percent so far this year and according to soe analysts the gains are not over as the world’s most popular crypto currency takes on it’s new role as a safehaven asset.

Gold has long been the go-to investment for investors who want to put their money somewhere in times of troubles such as the threat of wars and economic instability among other things.

Bitcoin is far from overtaking gold as the world’s leading safe haven bets but as recent invents show, it is certainly making some inroads.

"Investment in bitcoin as a potential safe haven investment surged following the US assassination of Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani, earlier this month,"  said Iqbal Gandham, UK managing director of a popular online trading platform.

"There was a 46 per cent increase globally in the amount of opened bitcoin positions on eToro compared to the average in the previous three months. This shows that bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies in general, are increasingly seen by some investors as a hedge in times of geopolitical crises." he added.

Gkillas Konstantinos and François Longin, authors of a recent  paper on the affects of bitcoin on the market, and especially during times of high volatility has provided some valuable insight on how some investors are using the cryptocurrency to hedge themselves during times of turbulent market movements.

They say bitcoin can even be used in correlation with gold to ride out the wild times and protect one’s self from any major movements

"By combining each equity market with bitcoin, we find that the correlation of extreme returns sharply decreases during both market booms and crashes, indicating that bitcoin could provide the sought-after benefits of diversification during turbulent times," say the authors.

"A similar result is obtained for gold, confirming its well-recognized status as a safe haven when a crisis occurs. Finally, we find a low extreme correlation between bitcoin and gold, which implies that both assets can be used together in times of turbulence in financial markets to protect equity positions." they added.