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Paxos’ gold-backed crypto asset soared to an all-time high over the weekend amidst escalating tensions in the Middle East, leading some analysts to question Bitcoin‘s value as a geopolitical hedge. According to CoinGecko, Bitcoin’s price plummeted from just over $67,500 to around $62,700, a 7.5% drop within a few hours, while the PAXG gold-backed crypto token reached $2,855 on April 13th.
Geopolitical Tensions and Investor Psychology
Unlimited Funds founder and CEO, and former Bridgewater executive Bob Elliott, stated in a post on platform X that Bitcoin could be many things, but it is not a geopolitical shield. Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East escalated over the weekend following Iran’s drone and missile attacks on Israeli targets. The former head of research at Bridgewater Associates pointed out that Bitcoin traded with an almost perfect negative correlation with PAXG this weekend, concluding a noteworthy period:
“In fact, it seems to be turning into an even worse hedge over time.”
However, the PAXG token could not maintain this momentum and has since fallen back to its previous gold-linked price level of around $2,376 at the time of writing. The asset has made slow and steady progress since the beginning of March, increasing by 20% along with the underlying precious yellow metal prices, which peaked last week at $2,400 per ounce.
Prominent Figure Makes Striking Bitcoin Comment
Some analysts pointed out that the Paxos token, compared to other high-value crypto assets with billions of dollars in daily volume, has very little liquidity with only a $36 million daily volume. Meanwhile, Elliot observed that Bitcoin showed a similar market movement last year, experiencing a decline after Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, while gold prices rose. Referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Elliott made the following remarks:
“These correlations seem to be becoming more negative over time. Bitcoin traded largely at random within a relatively narrow range at the beginning and after the invasion.”
Elliott concluded that, from a geopolitical perspective, Bitcoin is not a store of value and its broader use could tie it more closely to total financial assets:
“When looking at the geopolitical dimension, it’s clear that Bitcoin is not digital gold.”
At the time of writing, Bitcoin had begun to recover from its weekend dip, trading at $66,538 in early transactions on April 15th.
