As crisis stalks the traditional world of stocks and bonds, bitcoin suddenly looks like a safe haven.
The infamously volatile cryptocurrency seems positively hale and hearty, just as a banking meltdown drives markets into the arms of a recession.
Bitcoin has risen 21% this month, while a choppy S&P 500 has lost 1.4% and gold has gained 8%.
“If you were going to describe an environment where there were successive bank runs because central banks are trying to fight inflation with fast rate increases, that is pretty close to as spot-on a thesis for owning bitcoin as you’ve ever heard,” said Stéphane Ouellette, CEO at digital asset investment platform FRNT Financial.
The cryptocurrency has, for now, severed its ties with stocks and bonds and tagged on to a rally in gold, fulfilling at least one part of creator Satoshi Nakamoto’s dream – that bitcoin can serve as a refuge for suffering investors.
Bitcoin’s 30-day correlation with the S&P 500 has slid to negative 0.12 over the past week, where a measure of 1 indicates the two assets are moving in lock step.
A selloff in banks has wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars in market value and forced US regulators to launch emergency measures. The past couple of weeks has seen Silicon Valley Bank and crypto lender Silvergate go under, while Credit Suisse has teetered on the brink.
