Bitcoin is usually known as digital gold, and for good reason.
It’s relatively scarce, recognized across borders, and might be held anonymously. And unlike physical gold, that needs to be kept in a safe, Bitcoin codes can be kept on a computer or even a piece of paper.
This makes Bitcoin a possible threat to gold bulls, one that has clearly caught the attention of the industry. The world Gold Council, an industry group representing gold miners, issued a report this year controversy that “cryptocurrencies are no substitute for gold” and won’t eliminate the need for the metal even if they do become a mainstream financial asset. Gold, the report notes, has the blessing of regulators, is less volatile than Bitcoin, and is a well-understood part of a balanced investment portfolio.
Still, as the price of Bitcoin soared 1,400% last year, there have been indications that crypto had stolen some thunder—and maybe some assets—from gold. Demand for gold bars and coins in the U.S. fell in 2017, and remained weak through the first quarter of 2018, according to the world Gold Council. (The council blamed the rise in stocks for the weak demand, instead of the rise of Bitcoin.)
One commodity analyst isn’t convinced that crypto can shortly steal gold’s crown. Christopher Louney at RBC Capital Markets compared the gold and Bitcoin markets earlier this year and located a small inverse price correlation between the two.
But his analysis has many caveats. The inverse correlation only started showing up during the previous few months of 2017—a time of monumental volatility in the Bitcoin market—and its statistical significance was tenuous at the best.
In an interview on Thursday, Louney said that the inverse correlation between Bitcoin and gold has continued this year and even strengthened somewhat, however it remains relatively weak and unreliable.
Bitcoin may “pull some marginal flows from gold,” at least among people who view both gold and Bitcoin as forms of “stateless currencies,” he said. “But when we look deeper into the information, there’s little if any evidence of a causal relationship between the two,” creating it hard to use the price action of one to predict the value of the other.
“There are a subset of investors who do see the two as interchangeable, but I don’t think that’s a broad market view at this point.”
With the cryptocurrency tumbling 55th so far this year, the argument for Bitcoin as a gold alternative—the metal is down 8 May 1945 this year—may have dimmed a bit.
Gold tops Bitcoin on other metrics, too. The total worth of all the gold in the world is about $7 trillion, and $250 billion changes hands each day on average, the world Gold Council says. There’s about $115 billion worth of Bitcoin outstanding, and about $6 billion changes hands day by day, according to CoinMarketCap.com.
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