Deutsche Bank Research analyst Marion Laboure said she sees bitcoin potentially as the gold of the 21st century.
Deutsche Bank’s Marion Laboure:
“I could potentially see #Bitcoin to become the 21st century gold”
— Bloqport (@Bloqport) September 26, 2021
The statement was made by Laboure in a video posted on Deutsche Bank’s official website, in which the analyst tells how she believes the development of digital currencies will shape the future of payments.
Summary
About Marion Laboure of Deutsche Bank
Marion Laboure is a senior economist and market strategist at Deutsche Bank, and also teaches economics and finance at Harvard University.
She has been a frequent speaker on monetary policy, and Business Insider named her one of the top eleven minds in crypto this year.
The page on the bank’s official website where the video is shown also states that the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies of over a trillion dollars makes them “too important to ignore”.
Laboure says Bitcoin is a very different asset from traditional fiat currencies, which are backed by governments and are legal tender. In comparison, Bitcoin is currently legal tender only in El Salvador.
The supply of BTC is fixed, with about 89% already issued, which makes it a possible hedge against inflation, as many central banks controlling the supply of fiat currencies have increased their supply significantly in recent years.
Laboure says that people have always looked for assets that are not controlled by governments, and that gold has played precisely this role for centuries.
At this point he says explicitly:
“And yes, I could potentially see Bitcoin to become the 21st century digital gold”.
The analyst points out that gold has also been volatile in the past, though as of today bitcoin remains a risky asset, too volatile to be a reliable store of value. He also expects it to remain very volatile for the foreseeable future.
He says about two-thirds of BTC are used as a form of investment or for financial speculation, with a few large purchases or sales that can also have a significant impact on the balance between supply and demand.
According to Laboure, the value of bitcoin will continue to rise or fall depending on what people believe it will be worth, with small changes in investor perceptions likely to have large impacts on the price.
Deutsche Bank on Bitcoin
Back in March Deutsche Bank published a report explicitly saying that bitcoin was now too important to ignore, and back in November last year they admitted that BTC was being used as a hedge against inflation.
Indeed, even in 2019 they were already beginning to speculate that cryptocurrencies might actually have the potential to replace fiat currencies in the long run.
This is the first time they admit that there is a possibility that bitcoin could play a role similar to that of gold in the financial markets, although they make it clear that there is still a huge difference between gold and bitcoin due to volatility.
Deutsche Bank and shares
Of all German banks, Deutsche Bank has a reputation for being unscrupulous, which may have played some kind of role in the bank’s big problems in recent years.
Its share price has literally collapsed since the 2008 financial crisis, falling from $114 at the beginning of 2008 to $12.7 today, a loss of 88% in twelve years, even though the stock has already appreciated by 160% since its low of $5 in March 2020.
