Cryptocurrency Crash Sparks Bitcoin's Nouveau Riche to Run to Gold

Eddie van der Walt

and

Sam Potter

January 17, 2018, 7:01 AM EST Updated on January 17, 2018, 4:56 PM EST

Online dealer sold 30kg of gold Tuesday, worth more than $1m
Bitcoin tumbles below $10,000 for first time since December

Bloomberg’s Eric Lam reports on the rise in the price of gold while Bitcoin declines.

Amid the wild Bitcoin ride that’s wiped more than 40 percent off the cryptocurrency’s price in a month, a pattern may be emerging: sellers are switching out of digital gold and into the real thing.

Bullion dealer Sharps Pixley, a subsidiary of Europe’s largest precious metal coin and bar outlet, regularly sees trades north of a million pounds, while sales of gold coins at Frankfurt-based CoinInvest jumped fivefold as the largest digital asset collapsed after surging 1,400 percent last year, according to Director Daniel Marburger.