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US economist slams Bitcoin’s status as a safe haven amid geopolitical chaos

US economist slams Bitcoin’s status as a safe haven amid geopolitical chaos

As he continues to bash Bitcoin (BTC), the American economist and gold bug Peter Schiff has recently challenged the status of the flagship decentralized finance (DeFi) asset as a safe haven amid geopolitical tensions, arguing that his favorite precious metal is the logical choice instead.

Specifically, Schiff said that the most recent escalation in the Middle East had triggered a gold rally of 1.6% to $2,416, whereas Bitcoin tanked “4% down to $61K,” posing a rhetorical question of “which one is a safe haven and which one is a highly speculative digital token?” in an X post on April 19.

‘Bitcoin fad is over’

Furthermore, he pointed out that gold was “trading at a new record high, but silver is outperforming, up 1.75%,” voicing his opinion that the “Bitcoin fad is over.” More recently, Schiff highlighted the difference in the latest performance between the maiden cryptocurrency and other risk assets, arguing that:

“What’s significant is not that Bitcoin rallied back with other risk assets, but that when the Dow initially fell 1.5% in a knee-jerk reaction to escalating geopolitical risk, Bitcoin tanked 6%. In contrast, gold rose 1.5%. Bitcoin is not the safe haven asset it’s promoted to be.”

Moreover, disputed Bitcoin’s reputation as digital gold, asserting that “during times of escalating risk, Bitcoin does the opposite of gold” and opined that it “has no actual value that can relate to anything else” and, therefore, cannot be a hedge against inflation, although 

Schiff’s BTC price prediction

As a reminder, Schiff had earlier predicted that the largest asset in the crypto market was about to suffer a “catastrophic crash” due to the large amounts of it entering into spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), making it more vulnerable as “ETF buyers are more likely traders than true believers.”

However, Bitcoin is currently recovering its price and is changing hands at $64,810, which suggests an increase of 5.13% in the last 24 hours, as it moves to erase the losses of 8.40% across the previous seven days and accumulating a 2.97% increase over the past month.

Bitcoin price 24-hour chart
Bitcoin price 24-hour chart. Source: Finbold

Ultimately, Peter Schiff might have a point in some of his arguments, but, as commenters to his X posts often point out, he has been repeating the same song about Bitcoin for a very long time since its price was as low as $1,000, and Bitcoin has since increased by more than 6,300%.

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