Goldman Sachs, a well-known Wall Street company, did not start to include Bitcoin in its weekly ranking of global asset class returns until late January. At that time, the largest cryptocurrency quietly appeared at the top of the chart.
But since then, Bitcoin (BTC, +7.04%) has expanded its lead in assets ranging from stocks to bonds, oil, banks, gold and technology stocks, and the euro.
According to Goldman Sachs' latest "U.S. Early 2021 Weekly Report", as of March 4, Bitcoin's year-to-date return rate was about 70%, twice that of the latter competitor, the energy industry, which was about 35%.
Now, the recent sell-off in US stocks has brought the S&P 500's year-to-date return to about zero-the same as that of the year, and this comparison may be more beneficial to Bitcoin.
The rebound in oil prices and real yields has boosted year-to-date returns in cyclical industries such as energy and finance, but these industries have performed lower than Bitcoin.
Since the beginning of this year, the risk-adjusted rate of return (Sharp ratio) of crude oil and energy has been higher than that of Bitcoin.
Gold is the worst-performing asset class so far this year because rising yields have affected traditional defensive industries such as consumer commodities and utilities.
According to previous reports by CoinDesk, Bitcoin is regarded by many investors in the crypto market and traditional markets as a potential inflation hedge, especially when central banks around the world inject trillions of dollars of newly created currency into financial markets to stimulate the coronavirus economy. Era. Even so, gold fell by about 10% during the year, prompting some market observers to believe that Bitcoin is grabbing market share for the yellow metal.