In case you feel baffled by Bitcoin’s recent fall from grace, you are most definitely not alone.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has just taken to Twitter to reveal that BTC did the opposite of what he expected during the global market turmoil.
Surprised we’re seeing the Bitcoin price fall in this environment, would have expected the opposite.
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) March 9, 2020
Did he mean crypto?
It is a rather rare occasion when the CEO of the biggest exchange in the U.S. comments about the price of Bitcoin. However, some prominent members of the cryptocurrency community, including Blockstream CEO Adam Back, were not thrilled by his take given that he only singled out only the big orange coin.
While it’s clear that Bitcoin calls the tune in the cryptocurrency market (it is responsible for 64 percent of its total market capitalization), Armstrong’s tweet was perceived as an attempt to depict BTC in a bad light.
Well spotted.
— Adam Back (@adam3us) March 9, 2020
Last week, Armstrong faced some backlash after suggesting that another digital coin might push crypto into the mainstream.
Bitcoin failing as a hedge asset
Prior to Armstrong, trading vet John Bollinger tweeted that he couldn’t predict the recent Bitcoin price crash. Instead, he expected Bitcoin to act as a safe-haven asset.
Economist Nouriel Roubini believes that BTC cannot act as a risk-off asset because it plunged harder than equities.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s analyst Joe Weisenthal has reiterated his point that investors are tempted to liquidate everything in order to get more cash.
I’m not surprised at all. And I wrote some tweets on it last night. When people are panicking, they liquidate anything in sight, so they can pay their fiat-denominated bills https://t.co/mIO4Prnzs1
— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) March 9, 2020