Goldman Sachs Calls Bitcoin 'the Retail Inflation Hedge' That's Not a Threat to Gold

Goldman Sachs’ head of commodities research calls bitcoin “the retail inflation hedge” and likens the cryptocurrency to copper. He says gold and bitcoin can co-exist and does “not see bitcoin’s rising popularity as an existential threat to gold’s status as the currency of last resort.”

Goldman Sachs on Bitcoin, Gold, Copper, and Inflation Hedge

Jeff Currie, global head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs, revealed his outlook for bitcoin, gold, and copper on Thursday. Commenting on the recent surge in bitcoin’s price, he said on Bloomberg Markets that looking at its price chart, bitcoin looks “very similar” to copper. “What do they have in common?” he continued:

They are both risk-on growth proxies, and I would argue that bitcoin is the retail inflation hedge.

Goldman Sach’s strategists led by Currie also wrote in a note on Thursday that “Gold’s recent underperformance versus real rates and the dollar has left some investors concerned that bitcoin is replacing gold as the inflation hedge of choice.”

The strategists primarily attributed the recent decline in gold’s price to a coronavirus vaccine-driven investment strategy that led investors to buy riskier assets, rather than abandoning gold on the basis of its diminishing value.

Currie emphasized that gold is a defensive asset and “there’s really no evidence” that BTC “stole demand from gold.” Goldman Sachs’ analysts wrote:

We do not see bitcoin’s rising popularity as an existential threat to gold’s status as the currency of last resort … We do not see evidence that bitcoin’s rally is cannibalizing gold’s bull market and believe the two can coexist.

Some analysts, including those at JPMorgan Chase, disagree with Goldman Sachs, however. They believe that investors are moving money out of gold investments into bitcoin. Some companies have also scaled down their gold exposure to purchase bitcoin to hedge against fiat currency devaluation, including British asset manager Ruffer.