Bitcoin: Safe Haven or Just a Meme?

Several years back, many in the crypto community described Bitcoin as a “safe-haven” asset. Fewer are calling it that today. 🤨

A safe-haven asset maintains or increases in value in times of economic stress. It can be a government bond, a currency like the US dollar, a commodity like gold, or even a blue-chip stock.

A spreading global tariff war set off by the United States, as well as troubling economic reports, have sent equity markets tumbling, and Bitcoin too — which wasn’t supposed to happen with a “risk off” asset.

Bitcoin has suffered compared with gold, too. “While gold prices are up +10%, Bitcoin is down -10% since January 1st,” noted the Kobeissi Letter on March 3. “Crypto is no longer viewed as a safe haven play.” (Bitcoin dropped even further last week.)

But some market observers are saying that this wasn’t really unexpected.

Was Bitcoin ever a safe haven?

“I have never thought of BTC as a ‘safe haven,’” Paul Schatz, founder and president of Heritage Capital, a financial advisory firm, told CryptoMoon. “The magnitude of the moves in BTC are just too great to be put in the haven category although I do believe investors can and should have an allocation to the asset class in general.”

“Bitcoin is still a speculative instrument for me, not a safe haven,” Jochen Stanzl, Chief Market Analyst at CMC Markets (Germany), told CryptoMoon. “A safe haven investment like gold has an intrinsic value that will never be zero. Bitcoin can go down 80% in major corrections. I wouldn’t expect that from gold.”

Crypto, including Bitcoin, “has never been a ‘safe haven play’ in my opinion,” Buvaneshwaran Venugopal, assistant professor in the department of finance at the University of Central Florida, told CryptoMoon.

But things aren’t always as clear as they first appear, especially when it comes to cryptocurrencies.

One could argue that there are different kinds of safe havens: one for geopolitical events like wars, pandemics, and economic recessions, and another for strictly financial events like bank collapses or a weakening dollar, for instance.

The perception of Bitcoin may be changing. Its inclusion in exchange-traded funds issued by major asset managers like BlackRock and Fidelity in 2024 widened its ownership base, but it may also have changed its “narrative.”

It is now more widely seen as a speculative or “risk on” asset like a technology stock. 😮

“Bitcoin, and crypto as a whole, have become highly correlated with risky assets and they often move inversely to safe-haven assets, like

2025-03-15 16:21

Was Bitcoin ever a safe haven?

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