By CCN Markets: The Dow Jones just suffered its worst performance of the year so far, tanking an eye-popping 800 points. Investors tend to do a flight to safety during times like these, which would include assets such as traditional safe-haven gold and the new kid on the block, bitcoin. But crypto didn’t provide much solace to investors today, with the BTC price falling 7 percent to barely hold onto $10,000. Gold advanced a modest 1 percent to $1,516, but it appears to have the wind at its back.
Until recently, bitcoin has been a go-to investment while the U.S./China trade war has raged on, but now the flagship cryptocurrency is showing its true colors as a risk-on asset, one having nothing whatsoever to do with safety.
Travis Kling, who runs Ikigai Asset Management, offered no shortage of explanations on why BTC isn’t behaving like a safe-haven asset of late. Among our favorites were:
“It’s like maybe BTC is strong enough to swim in the pool right now but not in the ocean.
“Maybe BTC can rally with gold when it’s about tariffs but not when its about global growth slowdown.”
Indeed, the global economic slowdown phenomenon seemed to knock the wind out of the sails of every asset class today, and even President Trump couldn’t tweet us out of this one.
Lots of talk about BTC as a safe haven lately. Hasnt acted like that last few days. Why?
Could be crypto specific mkt structure issues. We see those right now
Could also be BTC is strong enough to act as a safe haven to an extent and for certain types of stress, but not all.
— Travis Kling (@Travis_Kling) August 14, 2019
Our favorite gold bug and yours Peter Schiff is peddling more doom-and-gloom than usual and complaining that there was not enough focus on bitcoin’s decline.
When Bitcoin rose slightly on the yuan breaking 7, CNBC gave it non-stop positive coverage as digital gold and the new hedge. But today, with Bitcoin crashing more than the stock market, even as gold rallies sharply, proving Bitcoin is no hedge at all, it’s barely mentioned!
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) August 14, 2019
Schiff appears to be fixated on business news coverage for some reason even though bitcoin has always been a risky asset. That’s why crypto asset managers only recommend a small percentage of an investment portfolio be allocated to it, but they do advise investors to have some exposure to crypto. As Morgan Creek Capital Management CEO Mark Yusko recent stated, “Simple, this technological evolution is [the] greatest wealth creation opportunity I’ve seen in my lifetime.”
The average correlation between #bitcoin and $SPX weekly returns since July 2010 is slightly above zero, likely not statistically significant. Since Dec. 2018, the correlation has turned moderately negative, providing #diversification benefit. pic.twitter.com/3z46cw76AV
— Victor Li (@CryptoEcon_Li) August 6, 2019
Bitcoin Is Schmuck Insurance: Mark Yusko
Yusko recommends investors allocate between 1 percent and 5 percent “of your net worth in this asset as a hedge against all the problems that we see in the fiat markets and in the equity markets.” He explained to CNBC that those who are obsessed with the day-to-day trading of the cryptocurrency are “missing the whole point.”
“The whole idea of bitcoin is it’s a store of value, it’s a chaos hedge or schmuck insurance as I like to call it. And what we need to think about is the long-term trend.”
Despite their differences, the bitcoin price is up more than 150 percent year-to-date while gold bulls are predicting the price is headed for $1,700.
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