Investors are dumping gold for cryptocurrencies as inflation picks up, fleeing a metal historically touted as a store of value to buy digital assets little more than a decade old.
More than $10bn has been pulled from the biggest gold exchange traded fund this year and funds’ physical gold hoards have also been selling down, according to Bloomberg data. The price of gold has declined 6.1 per cent this year to $1,782 a troy ounce on Wednesday.
Bitcoin has meanwhile doubled in price to a record high of more than $67,000 this week. Some investors have begun to view it and other cryptocurrencies as an inflation hedge, even if none existed during the world’s last serious bout of inflation.