Grayscale says Bitcoin mirrors tech stocks not gold

The American digital currency asset management company Grayscale says Bitcoin is behaving less like gold and more like a tech stock, as its price has recently dropped sharply, prompting investors to quickly sell their holdings. 

In its latest research report, Market Byte: Bitcoin Trading More Like Growth Than Gold, Grayscale says Bitcoin’s short-term movements are more like those of growth-oriented markets than those of precious metals like gold.

Bitcoin falls like tech stocks when markets sell off

The price of Bitcoin dropped to about $60,000 on Feb. 5 before rising again. While this trajectory is normal for the token, it’s worth noting that the coin reached its peak in October at prices above $126,000, and has since dropped by more than 50%. 

Because Bitcoin is one of the largest and most closely monitored cryptocurrencies worldwide, investors will naturally ask questions about the forces driving its price movements. They want to know the causes and how BTC behaves during stressful market periods.

And that’s where Grayscale’s new research comes with answers. The firm quickly dismantled the claim that BTC and gold are both safe havens for investment, saying the crypto asset is risky and that people rush into it only during periods of high hype. 

The company also mentioned that the same investors will quickly sell off their holdings when fear enters the market, so instead of absorbing the shock and standing still like gold, the token moves with it.

Grayscale explained that more traders don’t view Bitcoin as a safe investment that can withstand market pressure. According to the report, as the stocks of high-growth software companies dropped, investors also pulled funds out of Bitcoin. 

Also, the report revealed that Bitcoin’s price has been moving with the performance of the stocks of software companies with extremely high valuations over the last 12 months. This simply indicates that the market expects significant future growth from the companies, as their stock is heavily influenced by confidence and risk-taking. It therefore declines quickly if investors suddenly become wary.

The firm also stated that investors have expressed concerns that AI could disrupt or even replace traditional software services, which has led to the decline in technology stocks. As a result of this close association between Bitcoin and technology stocks, Bitcoin has fallen almost in step with them.

Grayscale says Bitcoin could become digital gold someday

In its report, Grayscale still said that Bitcoin hasn’t reached its full potential yet and that it has several long-term features that make it a strong store of value and worthy of the title “digital gold.”

For example, Bitcoin’s limited supply helps protect its value even as demand rises, and because it runs on a decentralized network, investors see it as different and more favorable than traditional money, whose control is not with the holder. 

However, Grayscale has also indicated that Bitcoin does not behave like gold at the moment, at least not in the short term. According to Zach Pandl, the report’s author, the recent movements in Bitcoin price have not closely correlated with those of gold and other precious metals.

While gold and silver have seen strong rallies over the past few months, Bitcoin has not behaved the same way and has actually fallen alongside riskier growth assets rather than holding steady as a safe haven. Therefore, while Bitcoin may be “gold-like” in some ways, the market does not treat the cryptocurrency the same way at the moment.

This difference, according to Pandl, should not be surprising, as Bitcoin is still in its infancy compared to gold. Gold has been used as money for thousands of years and was the foundation of the entire monetary system up until the early 1970s. 

Today, gold is still held by central banks and governments as one of the world’s largest reserve assets. Bitcoin is still just 17 years old and is still proving itself as a global monetary asset.