A chief investment strategist at investment banking firm BMO Capital Markets, Brian Belski, has recently revealed he believes it may be too soon to consider bitcoin a safe haven asset.
Speaking during CNN Business show Markets Now, Belski revealed he believes bitcoin is “excessively volatile” and that while it’s currently “sexy” be in bitcoin now, he doesn’t base his investments “on sex appeal.”
Bitcoin has been excessively volatile, especially the last couple of years. It’s the sexy kind of thing to go to now. I don’t base my investments on sex appeal. I base my investment on longer-term perspective. And I think the longer-term perspective, in terms of Bitcoin being that safe haven, I think it’s way too soon to call that.
The chief investment strategist’s comments came right after the equity market experience of worst sell-off of the year, which saw the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Nasdaq Composite drop to a yearly low.
The drop occurred as China devalued its currency, the yuan, to an 11-year low against the U.S. dollar in response to tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. Weakening its currency helps China offset the impact the tariffs could have, and saw Trump call the country a currency manipulator.
Expecting an escalation in the U.S.-China trade war, most investors seemingly started moving toward safe haven assets – traditionally gold, U.S. Treasuries, and the Swiss Franc – to hedge against potential economic turmoil.
As CryptoGlobe covered some analysts are more confident bitcoin is indeed being considered a safe haven. Chris Reinertsen, chief marketing officer at Rhythm Technologies, has claimed bitcoin is being treated as such by investors looking to hedge against uncertainties. He stated:
There is a flight of capital to safe-haven assets across the board, which now includes Bitcoin. Throughout the last few years, we have been seeing the trend of Bitcoin increasingly becoming fundamentally correlated to more macro moves as increased economic uncertainty in the world increases.
Reinertsen added that in the near future he expected to see “more capital flight to bitcoin.” This, even though the “correlation” that bitcoin is a safe haven hasn’t been established yet.
