- Bitcoin has shown increasing decoupling from the main asset classes of the traditional market.
- BTC’s correlation to gold retreated from its all-time high, standing at 11% on May 31.
In the past few months, the world’s largest crypto asset by market capitalization Bitcoin [BTC] gained the upper hand over other major commodity assets of the financial market. According to on-chain analytics company GlasnodeThe king coin outperformed crude oil, gold and silver, growing 14.5% over the past three months.
While crude oil prices fell 4% over the same period, there was good news from the precious metals market. This was because precious metals such as gold and silver grew by 7.5% and 12.7% respectively.
Bitcoin emerging as a safe haven?
The fact that Bitcoin’s growth occurred during the US banking crisis reinforced BTC’s long-supported narrative that it is a safe haven. A safe haven is an asset whose value is expected to remain stable or increase during periods of economic downturn.
The crisis led many investors to dump their bank stocks and transfer their money to the crypto economy, more specifically to Bitcoin.
In recent months, Bitcoin has shown increasing decoupling from the main asset classes of the traditional market. According to Kaiko, a source of digital asset market statistics, Bitcoin’s correlation to gold fell to 11% from a multi-year high of 50% in April.
In addition, since the beginning of 2023, the correlation of the virtual currency with US equities has fallen sharply. This indicated that Bitcoin was increasingly seen as an independent asset class.
#Bitcoin‘s correlation with #gold has retreated from all time highs and currently sits at 11% pic.twitter.com/QGdJvSX5qz
— Kaiko (@KaikoData) May 30, 2023
These factors may play a role
One of the main reasons why Bitcoin can prove to be a legitimate store of value is its scarcity. In less than a year, Bitcoin will undergo another one halving event that will further reduce the rewards paid to miners for producing blocks. This essentially means that Bitcoin is a deflationary asset. In addition, the issuance of coins will decrease over time, resulting in a significant increase in value.
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But it wasn’t just speculative interest that drove Bitcoin’s value. Its use has increased remarkably since the beginning of 2023, with the Ordinals protocol paving the way for the creation of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), coins, and stablecoins on the network.
This has sparked the interest of retail investors, as evidenced by the growing number of addresses holding less than 10 BTC. However, the coin’s weighted sentiment remained neutral and did not shift in favor of any particular market emotion.