It was a tale of two halves yesterday as Bitcoin slumped to a six-month low of $33,800 whilst the Swiss franc – a traditional safe haven currency – surged to a six-year high against the euro.
The Swiss franc hit its highest level since June 2015 as it approached parity of 1 to 1 with the euro yesterday. The franc ended trading at 1.0325 and has made minor gains this morning to push to 1.0376 francs per euro.
Experts are citing the current concerns around Ukraine and Russian troops stationed near the border as a driving force for continental demand to move away from the euro and into the Swiss franc, and there are suggestions that this is also the cause for Bitcoin's sudden drop in demand.
The cryptocurrency is valued at $36,550.86 per token presently, a far cry from the record $69,000 set in November last year, but Bitcoin has climbed back up 9.29% in the past 24 hours. It is still down 12.76% for the week though and 26.99% for the past month – seemingly throwing water on the idea that this is the fault of potential conflict.
Instead, the Swiss franc's gains and Bitcoin's losses seem to be a bigger cumulative effect. The threat of war, hints at a sudden election in Italy, gains for the Japanese Yen (another safe haven currency), concerns over inflation, and talk of a 'super bubble' in the stock markets that could burst at any moment.
It's perhaps no shock then that investors would want to take a breather, but the behaviour from here on out is a key indicator. With Bitcoin and Etherium both dropping, will we see people buy the dip to nab cheap crypto? Or are the market worries now greater than a 'good opportunity'? If so we could see Risk Off rather than Risk On as the trading mentality of investors for the next few weeks or even months.
