Bitcoin tends to outperform traditional safe-haven assets like gold in the two months following major global crises, according to a new analysis from Brazilian crypto exchange Mercado Bitcoin.
The study, led by Rony Szuster, head of research at the Latin American crypto platform, looked at 60-day windows after economic or geopolitical shocks such as the COVID-19 outbreak and escalating US tariffs. Bitcoin posted higher returns than gold and the S&P 500 in each of the periods analyzed.
In April last year, after the Trump administration announced drastic tariffs, the price of bitcoin jumped 24% over the next 60 days. Gold rose 8% and the S&P 500 rose 4%, the firm found.
A similar trend emerged at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, when BTC rose 21% while other assets lagged.
Szuster warned that judging Bitcoin’s performance too soon after a crisis can be misleading.
“It’s like watching the first few minutes of a movie and thinking you already know how it ends,” he said. “At times like this, investors sell their positions to reduce risk or raise liquidity, and even defensive assets can fall.”
This comes as investors struggle for liquidity, but bitcoin has consistently rebounded, the company found. This pattern appears to be repeating itself in the current conflict between the United States and Iran, where bitcoin is the only one of the three assets in positive territory so far, according to Szuster.
The data confirms this. Since the start of the war, bitcoin has risen more than 2.2%, from around $65,800 to $67,300 at the time of writing. Gold, the traditional safe haven, meanwhile fell around 11%, while the S&P lost 4.4% of its value in the index’s biggest monthly decline since 2022.
Despite its volatility, bitcoin has been the best-performing asset of the past decade, he added.
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