Bitcoin showed its luster during the first half of 2020 by rallying more than 27% amid mediocre returns from precious metals including gold, silver and platinum.
Gold underperformed bitcoin by nearly 11 percentage points despite gaining 16% in the first half of 2020 and making eight-year highs in late June. Silver and platinum both finished the first half of 2020 with negative gains.
Bitcoin’s strong performance is no shock to some analysts, especially in context of the benchmark cryptocurrency’s increasing correlation with equity markets.
Unlike gold, however, bitcoin investors have historically experienced more extreme volatility. Silver and platinum were also much more volatile than gold through the first half of 2020.
Bitcoin and gold could be seen more like complementary investments than competitive ones based on their performance over the past six months, say analysts and that “digital and physical gold together” could provide a better risk-return profile than holding either of them individually.
