Investors are hoping bitcoin becomes a âstore of valueâ but the largest cryptocurrency is still very volatile, Tom Jessop, head of Fidelity Digital Assets (FDAS), said during the Reuters Global Investment Outlook Summit 2020 on Thursday.Â
âWe use the words âpotential store of valueâ as bitcoin is still extremely volatile, and by any standard perhaps would not achieve the mantle of a true store of value,â said Jessop, whose company, a unit of Fidelity Investments, offers cryptocurrency trading and custody services for financial firms and corporations. His remarks were reported by Reuters.Â
Jessop added that while bitcoinâs volatility prevents it from acting as a reliable way to store value, âaspirationallyâ it could be one, and âthatâs one of the reasons why so many investors are now thinking about this space constructively.â
Currently, low trading volumes seem to have kept bitcoin hovering around $19,000 after touching its all-time high of $19,850 last week.
While sharp price movements in a market can often scare investors because volatility gets conflated with risk, whatâs unique about bitcoinâs volatility is that unlike the volatility index (VIX) for the S&P 500, bitcoinâs VIXÂ tends to be positively correlated with the assetâs price.Â
Read more: Worsening US Dollar, Inflation Metrics Bode Well for Bitcoinâs Continued Rally
In an October report regarding bitcoinâs market cap, FDAS noted that due to bitcoinâs uncorrelated nature the cryptoâs market cap has ample space to grow.Â
âIn a world where benchmark interest rates globally are near, at or below zero, the opportunity cost of not allocating to bitcoin is higher,â the report noted.Â