According to multiple experts, one possible reason for Bitcoin’s remarkable recent price rise are massive investor outflows from another popular inflation hedge: gold.
Spot gold swooned over the past week, falling 4.62% to $1,857. The asset previously had been surging in unison with Bitcoin, which is up over 40% from $28,000 lows last week.
In a Tweet on Friday, Charlie Morris, founder and CIO at ByteTree Asset Management, said that the pullback in gold might be attributable to investors moving to Bitcoin:
Likewise, earlier in the week, CNBC’s Mad Money host Jim Cramer said that the outflows from gold ETFs are “all going to crypto.” Tracking inflows and outflows from Grayscale’s Bitcoin investment trust and gold ETFs back this assertion, as Grayscale has eclipsed gold:
The moves could be a sign of Bitcoin’s rising status as a legitimate asset class. Gold and Bitcoin have long been linked as both are seen as a way to protect wealth against inflation and macroeconomic uncertainty, but if the price movements over the last week are any indication, however, Bitcoin may be winning the narrative race.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Coinshares chief revenue officer Frank Spiteri said that the narrative surrounding Bitcoin as an inflation hedge is gaining legs “in the face of a highly unconventional monetary policy environment.”
“It seems like we’re in the middle of a simultaneous awakening among institutions to Bitcoin as an uncorrelated store of value assets,” he said.
The observations from experts come after a unique flippening earlier this week: as of Friday, a single Bitcoin is worth more than a 20-ounce gold bar.
Still, for all the bearish price action and Bitcoin’s ascendancy, certain high-profile gold bugs refuse to budge on their positions. In a Tweet yesterday longtime Bitcoin skeptic and gold investor Peter Schiff claimed that once investors “understand” the inflation risk, they’ll return to bullion: