In the early morning of March 18, the Federal Reserve issued a statement at the meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) in March, saying that monetary policy was basically "still in action". In a subsequent interview, Federal Reserve Chairman Colin Powell believed that the current loose monetary policy is expected to continue until 2022 if the real inflation rate is taken as the target.

The market believes that the Fed's statement failed to meet market expectations, which can be described as a "Dove" loud and clear. Under this influence, spot gold prices rose significantly, once more than $1750 per ounce. At the same time, bitcoin has soared from $57000 to nearly $60000.

From the perspective of property, gold is a non interest bearing asset, and its price is basically driven by the real interest rate: when the real interest rate falls, the price of gold rises; when the real interest rate rises, the price of gold falls. The property of "non interest bearing" also makes gold an important "safe haven asset" in the economic fluctuation market.

Under the influence of the Federal Reserve's current round of policies, bitcoin and others have stepped out of the upward curve like gold. Does it mean that these cryptocurrencies are becoming new risk averse assets?

Industry insiders believe that although the fluctuation trend of bitcoin is sometimes similar to that of gold, if we look at it from a longer period of time, bitcoin has huge volatility risk due to speculative factors.

Therefore, from the perspective of investment products, bitcoin is more like a tactical asset with "high volatility", while gold is a strategic investment asset tested by practice.

At present, the status of gold as a "safe haven asset" remains unchanged. The current price behavior of cryptocurrency is largely affected by the high return expectation and low interest rate environment, so it can not fundamentally replace the role of gold in the portfolio. However, as the role of cryptocurrencies in the market evolves, they may play a more important role in the portfolio in the future.

(2021-3.18)