Gold emerges as safe-haven amid crypto sell-off

Gold has emerged as the safe-haven of the day amid sell-offs in traditional and crypto markets as fears mount over the spread of the ‘Nu’ virus.

The price of the precious metal rose in early US trading on Friday as investors sought a safe place to store their wealth, while futures traders covered short positions.

Gold was up by 1.34% today to $1,808 per ounce, while crypto, oil and stocks went in the other direction.

Bitcoin is down by 8% at the time of writing to $54,437, its lowest point since early October.

Since its all-time-high earlier this month of close to $69,000, Bitcoin is down by 20%.

This is leading to talk of a bear market which can be defined as a decline being 20% or more from a recent high.

Ethereum is also down by 11% as the entire crypto market saw dramatic downturns.

Digital currencies are falling in line with other risk-on assets, such as stocks, amid fear over the highly-mutilated variant of Covid which has been detected in southern Africa.