Bitcoin is worse than gold: a defenseless asset or a lifeline?

The wealthiest people lost $139 billion a day to the coronavirus. The stock and cryptocurrency markets sank, and the precious metal, on the contrary, updated the maximum value. How are these events related, and how has the epidemic affected digital money

Fears in stock markets of a coronavirus strike on the global economy led to the world's wealthiest people losing $139 billion in a day. This is the largest loss of people from the Bloomberg rating since October 2016, when the publication began to conduct observations.

LVMH group CEO Bernard Arnault and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos lost more than $4.8 billion each on February 24, Zara owner Amancio Otrega lost $4 billion, and Facebook Creator mark Zuckerberg lost $3.5 billion. Us stock indexes fell more than 3% at the close.

Against this background, the price of gold rose by 2.5% and updated the seven-year high above $1690. At the same time, the expectations of cryptocurrency supporters, who call Bitcoin a protective asset, were not met, as It could not overcome the $10,000 mark and fell by 3% to $9392.

Bitcoin is "still a long way from real gold," says Vladimir ANNIKOV, head of the corporate legal unit of the European Legal Service. This opinion is confirmed by the current quotes on the precious metals market and a small correction on crypto exchanges.

"The reasons for this mass, but the main situation with the restrictions in trade and movement of goods with the largest industrial economy directly affects stock markets and the value added of capital in this regard, and no, scriptactive, the main value of which is "in itself" (to a multiple of the growth and operating soundness of the settlement system in the blockchain). In other words, quotes on the crypto asset market continue to reflect the speculative nature of operations, " the expert believes.

But at the beginning of the year, the price of the main digital coin was rising steadily against the background of the conflict between Iran and the United States and the spread of the coronavirus. Billionaire Mike Novogratz said that BTC, like gold, acts as a hedge Fund, protecting investors from inflation and monetary policy of States, and also" perfectly "proved itself as"digital gold".

However, the head of the corporate legal unit of the EUS is sure that in fact the first cryptocurrency will become a protective asset, either very soon, or if the "world turns upside down" and abandons Fiat currencies in favor of digital money, such as Bitcoin.

The crypto market is subject to strong volatility. For example, at the beginning of the year, its capitalization was $191 billion, by mid-February it exceeded $300 billion, and now it has fallen below $270 billion. such movements can be called calm, with an eye on the speculative nature of the new type of assets.

The current dynamics of the cryptocurrency value is not related to the coronavirus, according to the head of the data analysis Department Сех.іо Broker Yuri Mazur. He explained that Bitcoin still has the opportunity to become a" lifeline " for investors.

"Now a very attractive entry threshold is low enough for digital currencies. And there is potential for growth. After the rollback, the value of Bitcoin will start to increase. This will be facilitated by the upcoming halving, " Mazur explained.

At the moment, Bitcoin can not be considered a protective asset and seriously compete with gold. The value of cryptocurrencies is always different moves at a time of global turmoil. Therefore, it is premature to say that there is some dependence of the asset rate on foreign policy factors.