Bitcoin outperforms gold as Iran war shakes ‘safe-haven’ trade

Since Donald Trump joined Israel’s war with Iran at 1:15am New York time on February 28, bitcoin (BTC) has rallied 8% while gold has fallen 18%.

At the onset of war, BTC was trading at $65,492 and gold was at $5,279 per ounce. By Monday evening, however, BTC had jumped to $70,700 while gold had tumbled to $4,300.

All this means that BTC now buys 32% more gold than it did on the morning of Operation Epic Fury.

Indeed, the world’s most valuable precious metal shed 12% in a single week, its worst seven-day stretch since 1983. Investors who bought gold as war insurance watched their policy lose a fifth of its value in four weeks.

Safe haven investors get a margin call

Gold’s initial move on the start of the conflict was a fakeout. It spiked higher after the Strait of Hormuz oil tanker shipping lane closure but reversed hard.

US Treasury yields climbed and the dollar strengthened, two forces that typically dampen the price of gold regardless of how many warships are in the Persian Gulf.

The sizable SPDR Gold Shares ETF hemorrhaged $4.2 billion in the first week of the war, breaking the record for weekly outflows in the fund’s history.

Investors pulled 25 tonnes of physical gold backing from the world’s biggest gold ETF within seven days.

Bitcoin absorbed the same shock yet held onto its gain. It even outperformed the S&P 500 Index which has fallen over 3% since the war began.

Read more: How bombing Iran shifted oil and bitcoin prices

Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio advised on the popular All-In podcast on March 3 that central banks are never going to want to buy BTC. “There is only one gold,” he claimed.

Since Dalio’s prediction, gold has dropped more than 15%. BTC, the asset Dalio dismissed, rallied.

Although BTC has performed well since the US authorized the bombing of Iran, it hasn’t outperformed gold over longer recent time periods. Year-to-date, the gold price is flat versus the 20% loss for BTC. Over the past 12 months, gold is up 44% versus a 17% loss for BTC.

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