CNBC: Bitcoin Nipping at Gold Demand
Gold has surpassed many challengers over the centuries as a go-to safe haven investment. Some investors say bitcoin is the challenger with the best chance of dethroning gold as the globe's ultimate store of value, according to CNBC. SCROLL DOWN FOR MORE
From CNBC:
Last year, when bitcoin prices rose from their 2017 starting value of just under $1,000 to over $19,000 by mid-December, market chatter was that bitcoin was usurping gold's role as a store of value and alternative to fiat currencies. After all, bitcoin's price was skyrocketing, while gold was languishing, staying mostly in the $1,200 an ounce range, despite rising geopolitical worries.
While the chatter has subsided in recent months with a deep decline in the price of bitcoin, the question still remains.
Pete Thomas, senior vice president of Zaner Precious Metals, a physical markets broker, said during last year's bitcoin price run-up, some of his regular customers who buy gold coins or bars on a monthly basis told him they were opting to buy bitcoin at the time instead.
"He told us that 20 percent of his business was now crypto," a long time client told him. "People were going to a gold broker and swapping crypto out or swapping gold to buy crypto with him. He's a real numbers guy and really reliable."
Will Rhind, founder and chief executive officer of GraniteShares, issuer of the GraniteShares Gold Trust (BAR), a physical gold ETF, believes another rise in bitcoin price will result in reduced marginal demand for gold, but he doesn't believe that bitcoin is a "zero-sum game" for gold.
"Certainly there are people who invest or buy both of them, but there's not a big market share differential between the two," he noted.
Debbie Carlson’s CNBC piece appears in full here.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
