Over the last week Bitcoin (BTC) has been in price discovery, hitting new highs on an almost daily basis, including an all-time peak of $123,121 (£91,204) at 0840 GMT on July 14.
The rest of the crypto market is following closely behind, with ISO20022-compliant coins such as XRP, XLM and ADA making particularly good ground over the week end.
Metal movement
Meanwhile in the precious metals markets, platinum has made gains of nearly 10% after hitting a low of £990 per ounce earlier in July, achieving a local high of £1,060.
Silver hit a 14-year high of £29.06 and gold has edged upwards after a long consolidation period where it has held its price at around £2,400 per ounce, rising to £2,500 at the time of writing.
Commodities tell the real story
As pointed out by veteran billionaire investor Warren Buffet, when financial institutions and investors have failed to prepare properly and the tide goes out, you can see who’s been swimming naked.
The metaphor does not need too much explanation. Other than to say that the debt-based financial system, being the said tide, is rapidly heading out, and as that happenes trillions of dollars, pounds, euros and other paper money are being printed to, if you’ll forgive me, stem the tide.
As I have pontificated before, the printing of currency is what inflation actually is (more currency chasing the same, or fewer, goods), results in inflating the price of commodities and assets, while making the pound in your pocket able to purchase less and less over time.
Institutions collecting valuables
Central banks like JP Morgan, Blackrock, Vanguard and Grayscale – multi trillion-dollar financial institutions – are buying and holding precious metals and crypto-currencies and creating paper contracts in the style of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).
This is a very positive indictor to the watchful investor of where to do some research and allocate resources.
For me, there are two very definite tides moving in two very definite directions: assets flowing in and fiat currency flowing out.
Whatever happens in these highly volatile times, I will not be caught without my swimming trunks on.
DISCLAIMER: This is the opinion of this columnist and should in no way been seen as impartial investment advice.
