[2019-08-05] Bitcoin Morphs Into Unlikely Sanctuary As Market Turmoil Rises

[joelsamuya]

Investors the world over are finding an unusual place to hide as the trade war between the U.S. and China roils global markets: Bitcoin. Investors piled into safer securities such as sovereign bonds on Monday after China struck back in its trade dispute with the U.S. and let its currency weaken through a milestone level. Major cryptocurrencies, increasingly seen as a refuge during distressed times, also rose, with Bitcoin gaining more than 14% and smaller peers including XRP and Litecoin each rising more than 5%.

“It definitely appears to be acting somewhat like a safe haven,” said Brad Bechtel, head of foreign exchange at Jefferies LLC. “When markets are calm and rallying, then Bitcoin sort of falls by the wayside,” he wrote by email. “But every time we see turbulence in the market and it starts to sell off, you see Bitcoin” and other safe-haven assets rally.

Risk assets across the world slumped after President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 10% tariff on Chinese imports that weren’t yet subject to levies. China responded on Monday, letting the yuan tumble to its weakest in more than a decade and asking state-owned firms to stop importing U.S. agricultural products.

Source is here.


As the global economy is now poised for big problems and challenges brought on by many factors foremost of which is the trade war between USA and China, Bitcoin is taking its right place as the most important safe haven as the digital gold, together with its real counterpart. And investors are loving it here with Bitcoin because of its tremendous potential for return-on-investment.

Will it mean that Bitcoin is now ready for the next big bull run?

[1714823318]

1714823318

[1714823318]

1714823318

[1714823318]

1714823318

[1714823318]

1714823318

[1714823318]

1714823318

[cr1776]

Everyone in Hong Kong should be buying some too given the troubles with China there too.  It is nice to see people appreciating the benefits bitcoin provides.

Why would they say "unlikely" though? That makes little sense.

[Harlot]

Trust me once the general public goes into the crypto market we would also be affected. Can you imagine the massive fomo it will produce when all kinds of investors in different markets starts buying cryptocurrencies? It would be a lot and I don't think that the market would be prepared for that kind of audience. Ones the prices starts to rise up and the market confidence grows weaker then we can see that it would quickly go downs when all the traders starts to cashing out their gains, all who will be left are the ones who aren't prepared for the massive sell out that will happen.

[gentlemand]

Let's return to this after several months of market and currency turmoil. A one day blip tells us nothing.

I still think we're at least 10-20 years away from BTC being big enough to be properly regarded as a 'safe haven' if it's to become that. Right now it's still far too easy for a small number of people to force it to tell the story they want to broadcast.

[ene1980]

I still think we're at least 10-20 years away from BTC being big enough to be properly regarded as a 'safe haven' if it's to become that. Right now it's still far too easy for a small number of people to force it to tell the story they want to broadcast.

I do have the same sentiments, people right now call this platform a wild speculative market and the big volatility we have is crazy and if you are new to the market then you will get scared to see a crazy market movement like we have in bitcoin, but the important thing that majority forget is that we are a new market and we are incredibly lucky to be in the market in its inception stages and if you are smart enough you will make a crazy amount of money from this market before it becomes stable in the next ten to twenty years.

[bbc.reporter]

It definitely appears to be acting somewhat like a safe haven,” said Brad Bechtel

Maybe he should wait until he experiences bitcoin type volatilty in full before he says something like that hehehe.

[Kakmakr]

Well, it says a lot about traders, if they opt to use a very volatile commodity like Bitcoin as a safe haven.    I still see Bitcoin as a high risk experiment, so I would not shift my whole portfolio into Bitcoin, when other stable investments struggle. 

I think these people are so desperate to hedge the value of their wealth and they anticipate a global economic collapse, that they are becoming trigger happy with every small crisis. It shows their small belief in the old asset classes and other investment options. <Stocks & Bonds> 

[Carlton Banks]

It definitely appears to be acting somewhat like a safe haven,” said Brad Bechtel

Maybe he should wait until he experiences bitcoin type volatilty in full before he says something like that hehehe.

I still think we're at least 10-20 years away from BTC being big enough to be properly regarded as a 'safe haven' if it's to become that.

Bitcoin's crossed the 'safe haven' rubicon already, chaps


it's simple

if you buy anything, any other asset:

• there's a risk you will not be permitted to own it at some point
• there's a risk that it goes to zero (the market price, or the value of your investment once you are relieved of it's possession)

if you buy Bitcoin:

• it cannot be re-appropriated from you
• consequently it is always in demand
• things that are always in demand always have a price

the only real sticking point is that not everyone has quite grokked the situation for what it is, despite Munchkin and Obomb-er referring to Bitcoin as a "swiss bank account". There's no helping some people

[timerland]

Hm... Not so sure about this, I doubt bitcoin can be seen as a very safe investment at all, it's definitely not stable and I doubt a lot of people invested in it because it was the safer option.

If it's crypto that where they want to have their investments in, there are a lot of stablecoins and a lot of other centralized and safer coins, I wonder what's the reason why they picked Bitcoin over other investments.

I reckon we'll see a lot of people place attention and turn to the world of cryptocurrencies with the tensions between China and USA - seeking safe havens.

[bbc.reporter]

It definitely appears to be acting somewhat like a safe haven,” said Brad Bechtel

Maybe he should wait until he experiences bitcoin type volatilty in full before he says something like that hehehe.

I still think we're at least 10-20 years away from BTC being big enough to be properly regarded as a 'safe haven' if it's to become that.

Bitcoin's crossed the 'safe haven' rubicon already, chaps


it's simple

if you buy anything, any other asset:

• there's a risk you will not be permitted to own it at some point
• there's a risk that it goes to zero (the market price, or the value of your investment once you are relieved of it's possession)

if you buy Bitcoin:

• it cannot be re-appropriated from you
• consequently it is always in demand
• things that are always in demand always have a price

the only real sticking point is that not everyone has quite grokked the situation for what it is, despite Munchkin and Obomb-er referring to Bitcoin as a "swiss bank account". There's no helping some people

I know, I was only joking hehehe.

Someone new. I will buy on $12k of this safe haven coin.

News headlines the next day. Bitcoin opened the day on $10500, no reason, it just wanted to.

Hehehe.

[Carlton Banks]

Hm... Not so sure about this, I doubt bitcoin can be seen as a very safe investment at all, it's definitely not stable and I doubt a lot of people invested in it because it was the safer option.

if you're sufficiently adept, your BTC is safer than your bank account money


I hate having to repeat myself on the same page of the thread, but that's why Bitcoin will always be in demand: because your BTC will always be safe. You can't say that about anything else to the same degree, which is why it's the ultimate safe haven, as long as that inviolable ownership characteristic remains stable.


All the below assets are subject to the "......aaaaaaaaaaand it's gone" problem

• bank accounts
• pension funds
• stocks
• bonds
• property
• commodity based (gold + others)

if someone with sufficient political power wants to take any of the above from you, they can (it's happened before). That's why Bitcoin is valuable and in demand, it cannot be confiscated (from people who are capable of protecting it)

[1Referee]

If it's crypto that where they want to have their investments in, there are a lot of stablecoins and a lot of other centralized and safer coins, I wonder what's the reason why they picked Bitcoin over other investments.

Are you seriously thinking about why they didn't choose stablecoins over Bitcoin? What's the point of holding stablecoins as "safe haven" tool (which are pegged to the dollar), when you can just hold your REAL dollars? On top of that, stablecoins lose purchasing power just as much as the actual fiat currencies they are pegged to. It's a horrible "safe haven".

Also don't forget the added counterparty risk of holding stablecoins over the counterparty risk of just holding dollars in your bank account.

Bitcoin just came out of a nasty bear market, which makes it super interesting to buy into because it allows you to claim your position to ride the next bull wave that's coming. Combine super bullish charts with people more and more respecting Bitcoin as a digital Gold, and there you have a solid reason to allocate funds to Bitcoin.

[Lucius]

Are you seriously thinking about why they didn't choose stablecoins over Bitcoin? What's the point of holding stablecoins as "safe haven" tool (which are pegged to the dollar), when you can just hold your REAL dollars?

And not only that, but also fact that we see recently how stablecoins are not 100% backed by fiat (Tether and Bitfinex confirm USDT is not fully backed by fiat, only 74% of tethers backed with cash, so they can make fresh coins backed by nothing.

Only good thing with stablecoins is that they can be very easily moved from one crypto exchange to another, so they have some purpose in the form of facilitating trading.

Investing in bitcoin to save your money is a good idea right now. But what will happen in a few years?

There are four possible outcomes :

• You will save&increase you fiat value.
• You will lost your investment (value of BTC will be lower then today).
• Price of BTC will be same as today.
• There will not be BTC anymore.

[bbc.reporter]

@Carlton Banks. Also, if you add anonymity to any cryptocoin as a basic property, it will be a more powerful tool for owning a property that will never ever be taken away from you.

[anoufal]

The price is back to $10,000 again, so this is a sign that bitcoin is still safe to invest

[CryptoBry]

The price is back to $10,000 again, so this is a sign that bitcoin is still safe to invest

In my opinion, this is going to be the zone where Bitcoin can be playing for the rest of the year but, of course, this is assuming that no bad development can happen that can influence the price of Bitcoin to go dump dramatically. And yes, for now, Bitcoin remains to be safe and very profitable to invest with and for those that got the talent in trading there is big money that can be realized with the usual volatility of this cryptocurrency.

[bryant.coleman]

The price is back to $10,000 again, so this is a sign that bitcoin is still safe to invest

In my opinion, this is going to be the zone where Bitcoin can be playing for the rest of the year but, of course, this is assuming that no bad development can happen that can influence the price of Bitcoin to go dump dramatically. And yes, for now, Bitcoin remains to be safe and very profitable to invest with and for those that got the talent in trading there is big money that can be realized with the usual volatility of this cryptocurrency.

So far Bitcoin prices have followed the pattern that we saw in 2017. And if the trends continue, then there can be another bull run during the last quarter of this year (similar to the 300% increase in the exchange rates that we had two years back). Also, we need to remember that the combined cryptocurrency market cap is still a fraction of what we had by the end of 2017. Back then we had close to $800 billion and the figure stands at $264 billion now. Bitcoin prices are high, because the market dominance has risen to more than 70% from less than 50%.

[coolcoinz]

The price is back to $10,000 again, so this is a sign that bitcoin is still safe to invest

And wasn't it safe at 6000? A year ago this was a safe haven level for quite a while, before it was finally broken. Safe meaning secure, unhackable, not "staying at certain value".
I'd say this is completely normal for this market. When there's fear regarding a certain asset or commodity people are running towards something else, just like people in Venezuela were jumping their sinking fiat ship, and when Bitcoin fees rose and Roger Ver launched BCH people were flocking to the so called "new king".

[1Referee]

Also, we need to remember that the combined cryptocurrency market cap is still a fraction of what we had by the end of 2017. Back then we had close to $800 billion and the figure stands at $264 billion now. Bitcoin prices are high, because the market dominance has risen to more than 70% from less than 50%.

The peak crypto bubble market cap of $800 billion isn't a good benchmark point. It was inflated that high because of the shitcoins that suddenly had multi billion market caps. Most of these coins have lost between 90-99% of their value because they don't offer any utility. Then we also have stablecoins being weighed in, which if taken away, it would increase Bitcoin's market cap dominance by another 3-4%.

Bitcoin should be the only benchmark point, the rest has no real relevance. Just look at the garbage here; https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20171218/

[Vishnu.Reang]

The peak crypto bubble market cap of $800 billion isn't a good benchmark point. It was inflated that high because of the shitcoins that suddenly had multi billion market caps. Most of these coins have lost between 90-99% of their value because they don't offer any utility. Then we also have stablecoins being weighed in, which if taken away, it would increase Bitcoin's market cap dominance by another 3-4%.

Bitcoin should be the only benchmark point, the rest has no real relevance. Just look at the garbage here; https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20171218/

Even if we consider the majority of the altcoin market cap as a "bubble", that doesn't hide the fact that the market capitalization of Bitcoin alone was more than 100% higher than the current levels. Apart from that, as you have pointed out, close to 4% of the current market cap is made up of stablecoins and when compared to 2017, there is a large increase in the number of different cryptocurrencies in active usage.