Bitcoin Is Becoming The New Safe Haven Trade

Emerging markets are continuously using bitcoin (BTC) as a way to get their money from their respective countries.

Cryptocurrencies are attractive to individuals in less developed economies for a few reasons:

• Transaction costs are the same as gold.BTC’s higher price volatility is offset by gold’s higher conversion fees
• Liquidity favors BTC
• BTC only requires access to the internet
• Easier to transport and hide $20,000 of BTC offsets gold’s bulkiness

As recent events in Turkey and Iran show, hard currency and precious metal confiscation is a very real threat, crypto is now a very real alternative.

Turkish citizens flocked to bitcoin as the Turkish lira continues to plummet. The lira is down nearly 40% this year alone. An insane drop for a currency.

In dollar terms, gold continues to trade lower as bitcoin catches a bid.

Here’s a chart of bitcoin demand from within Venezuela

(Click on image to enlarge)

The Emerging Markets can be grouped into two categories: those that are adopting BTC and those that are panic buying. Russia is an example of a late adopter.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Examples of panic buying: Argentina, Chile, Columbia, Hungary, India, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Venezuela.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Here’s Chile.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Here’s Columbia:

(Click on image to enlarge)

Here’s Hungary:

(Click on image to enlarge)

Here’s India:

(Click on image to enlarge)

Here’s Mexico:

(Click on image to enlarge)

Here’s Peru:

(Click on image to enlarge)

And here’s the Philippines:

(Click on image to enlarge)

Interpreting the BTC Currency Signal

One signal coming from BTC: an indication of underlying economic/capital strength.

It’s still a bit too early to assign a definitive value for regional BTC demand. But the fact that millions of people around the world are flocking to bitcoin is a sure sign there is a value of it.