Comparisons between gold and bitcoin are wide of the mark according to Goldman Sachs’s head of commodities Jeff Currie.
A better comparison would be copper said the analyst, especially for an investor looking for an inflation hedge.
Gold is a haven, he told CNBC, but bitcoin and copper are more akin to “risk-on” assets.
“They are substitutes for risk-on inflation hedges, not risk-off inflation hedges.
“You look at the correlation between bitcoin and copper, or a measure of risk appetite and bitcoin, and we’ve got 10 years of trading history on bitcoin, it is definitely a risk-on asset,” Currie said.
Over the past four weeks, bitcoin has shed around US$20,000 to US36,762 while gold has risen by 1% to US$1,837 per oz.