As an aside, the BTC USD rate has also jumped during this turmoil, and in many ways, it appears to mirror safe haven commodities quite closely. I find it interesting that an asset with such a "bad" reputation in the media is attracting investors during these unstable times.
Are people actually rationally using Bitcoin as a safe-haven, or are the Bitcoin maximalists irrationally fantasizing that this time they'll get some crisis that will fulfill their wildest dreams, so are piling more money into it?
If money moves into it and the price tends to increase during inflationary times, then you would be rational to use it as a safe-haven, regardless of what other people are doing.
It's not surprising prices are up.
If you believe Tether's are real - then you believe the increase is real.
If you believe Tether's are fake - then you believe the increase is fake.
Same crypto story, different day.
That's a lot of buying pressure.
100%. Crypto, broadly, behaved like a safe asset in the last weeks.
Safe asset is in part a statistical designation: it holds value or goes up in times of financial stress [1][2]. Crypto did that in the last weeks.
There is a second component of money-like stability that crypto does not meet. But it's interesting to see crypto rise while bank stability falters when, previously, Bitcoin was correlated with the S&P 500.
[1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2018/december/safe...
[2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2328809?seq=1#metadata_info_tab...
I tend to agree. But external stabilization hasn't been a disqualifier for historical safe assets.
I agree. To be clear, I'm not declaring Bitcoin a safe asset. Just pointing out that it behaved like one in the preceding weeks. That's genuinely interesting.
> its spectacular failure to achieve one of its stated goals of being an inflation hedge
Correct. Though I'd be amiss not pointing out that equities, too, failed their traditional role as an inflation hedge in that time.