Comparative Analysis of Gold, Bitcoin and Gold-backed Cryptocurrencies as Safe Havens During Global Crises: A Focus on G7 Stock Market and Banking Sector Indices

Abstract

In this article, we attempt to analyze and compare the safe-haven features of gold, Bitcoin and gold-backed cryptocurrency against the stock and banking indices of G7 countries during the outbreak of adverse events. To do so, we examine dynamic relationships between different assets and we compute optimal hedge ratios for different couples using the corrected Asymmetric Dynamic Conditional Correlation-Exponential Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity and corrected Asymmetric Dynamic Conditional Correlation-Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity models. We clearly show that gold and gold-backed cryptocurrency maintain higher weights in optimal portfolios compared to Bitcoin. We also report that shocks due to unexpected events increasingly affect dynamic correlations, asset weights and hedge ratios. This underscores the need for regular demand for rebalancing the hedge positions and effective risk management. We thereafter show that the relationship between Bitcoin (gold-backed cryptocurrency) and G7 indices is highly affected by the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. Such findings highlight the hedging and safe-haven features of different asset classes against stock markets. They could have insightful implications for investors who want to minimize investment risks and policymakers who are worried about the financial consequences of different unexpected events.