PAXG Reaches All-Time High Amid Middle East Unrest, Prompting Bitcoin Hedge Discussion

PAXG reached an all-time high of $2,855 on April 13 amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East following the missile and drone attack. PAXG’s price performance over the weekend has led to questions about Bitcoin’s value as a geopolitical hedge. While the PAXG token climbed to its all-time highs, Bitcoin’s price plummeted from $67,140 to a bottom of around $62,000, according to CoinMarketCap. The Bridgewater Associates research indicated that Bitcoin’s trading volume had a “near-perfect negative correlation over the last day to PAXG.” “If anything, it’s becoming an even worse hedge over time,” the research said about Bitcoin.The PAXG token couldn’t sustain its momentum, however, retracting back to $2,363 at the time of writing. The PAXG price has seen a slow gain since the beginning of March, peaking at $2,400 per ounce as of last week due to a 20% rise in gold prices. Despite this, Paxos liquidity isn’t volatile compared to major crypto assets like Bitcoin, which trade in the billions. 

Previous global conflicts that affected Bitcoin’s price

Similarly, Bitcoin’s value plummeted on October 7 following the Hamas attack on Israel, while gold went up. Another instance of Bitcoin’s price fluctuation is when Russia announced its Ukraine invasion. “The value of the cryptocurrency dropped around 7.5 percent on Thursday morning, as traditional markets were also thrown into disarray,” The Independent stated.Bitcoin is not a store of value, and its use may link more to aggregate financial assets.“Along the geopolitical dimension, it’s pretty conclusive BTC is not digital gold.’”At the time of writing, Bitcoin has already begun recovering from the weekend dump, rising above $66,700 on April 15.