JPMorgan says institutions are buying bitcoin rather than gold
According to a JPMorgan note discussing the factors that contributed to Bitcoin’s rally back to being a trillion-dollar asset class, the American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company gave three reasons, one of which stated that in the face of rising inflation, there is increased appetite from institutional investors who are seeking a hedge to inflation.
The note stated, “Institutional investors appear to be returning to bitcoin perhaps seeing it as a better inflation hedge than gold.” Gold has been on the decline as Year-to-Date, the supposed safe haven asset is down 7.36%.
The lack of interest in the yellow metal comes as many investors are now perceiving Bitcoin as an inflation hedge and with Bitcoin outperforming Gold YtD, bitcoin being a safe haven asset against inflation is becoming a thing of reality. The note also stated that the prior trend of money flowing out of gold and into bitcoin has reemerged in recent weeks.
The other two reasons for bitcoin’s rally
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JPMorgan gave two other reasons as to why Bitcoin rallied from a September low of $39,787.61 to trade as high as $55,568, representing a near 40% rally in a matter of weeks. They include;
- “The recent assurances by US policy makers that there is no intention to follow China’s steps towards banning the usage or mining of cryptocurrencies.”
- “The recent rise of the Lightning Network and 2nd layer payments solutions helped by El Salvador’s bitcoin adoption.”
The interest in Gold seems to not be a thing of conversation but of actual facts. The JPMorgan note revealed that since the start of the year, more than $10 billion has flowed out of gold ETFs, while more than $20 billion has flowed into bitcoin funds and these inflows into bitcoin funds helped push bitcoin’s market dominance to nearly 45% from a low of 41% in mid-September.
The note stated, “The increase in the share of bitcoin is a healthy development as it is more likely to reflect institutional participation than smaller cryptocurrencies.”
Bottomline
Bitcoin is currently up approximately 84% YtD and about 15% below its $65,000 all-time high reached in mid-April. Meanwhile, the yellow metal is down 7% this year.
This report is also similar to that of Goldman Sachs which stated that gold is now an optimal store of value, as the report compared the performance of gold to that of bitcoin and U.S equities. Both reports came to a similar conclusion that gold isn’t the inflation hedge we have come to know.
