Marion Laboure, an analyst at Deutsche Bank’s research division, said she could envision Bitcoin taking the role of digital gold in the future: lasting for centuries and largely not controlled by the government. Laboure said she could “potentially see Bitcoin become the 21st-century digital gold” but warned investors against the crypto asset’s volatility. According to the analyst, most Bitcoin (BTC) purchases are made for investments and speculation rather than keeping the coins for a medium of exchange.
The analyst expects Bitcoin to remain ultra-volatile in the foreseeable future.
“Just a few additional large purchases or market exits can significantly impact the supply-demand equilibrium,” said Laboure. “Bitcoin is too volatile to be a reliable store of value today. And I expect it to remain ultra-volatile in the foreseeable future,” the analyst noted. Though the Deutsche Bank analyst expressed concern about the lack of regulation over cryptocurrencies and their potential impact on the environment, she hinted that Bitcoin would likely remain the dominant cryptocurrency in the crypto space.
“If Bitcoin is sometimes called ‘digital gold,’ Ethereum would then be the ‘digital silver.”
Ethereum may have more use cases in decentralized finance and with the rise in non-fungible tokens, but Bitcoin still enjoys its “first-mover advantage.” “If Bitcoin is sometimes called ‘digital gold,’ Ethereum would then be the ‘digital silver,” the analyst opined. Earlier, Deutsche Bank analysts described Bitcoin as a cryptocurrency “too important to ignore, ” suggesting that the crypto asset price would likely rise with additional asset managers and companies entering the market. In 2019, the financial institution predicted that digital currencies would replace fiat by 2030.
