Cryptsheets - Is bitcoin a risk-off or risk-on asset?

Today's events bring to light the question of whether Bitcoin is considered a risk-off or risk-on asset. In just 24 hours US equities have erased 3 months of gains and the bid for safe haven assets sent gold rallying and the yield of 10Y US treasuries down 15bps. This is generally described as a risk-off event; where investors sell risky assets and rotate into perceived save havens like government bonds and gold. If Bitcoin is "digital gold" then we would have expected the same institional money that piled into Gold to also have bought Bitcoin. The reality it seems is that the majority of holders before today view Bitcoin as a risky asset, which is also justified given how new the technology is.

The below chart compares Bitcoin (XBTUSD Curncy) to S&P500 futures (ESA Index) over a 6 month horizon.

and the below compares Bitcoin to Gold futures (GCA Cmdty) over that same period.

The correlation between Bitcoin and the S&P500 was only 0.047 in 2017 and -0.049 in 2016, however in 2018 this has risen to 0.286. It would appear the popularity of bitcoin and it's inclusion in many ordinary investors portfolios has made it move with general market sentiment, i.e. when confidence is high they buy and when they are nervous they sell. It will be interesting to see whether this correlation increases or decreases as the investor base shifts from retail to institutional money.