Bitcoin price (BTC/USD) hits new 2019 low below $3,500 on Monday

It seems that Bitcoin (BTC) investors are shifting away from the original cryptocurrency and moving their money into gold, according to the chief executive officer of Van Eck Associates, Jan Van Eck.

“I do think that Bitcoin pulled a little bit of demand away from gold last year, in 2017,” Van Eck said in a recent interview with CNBC. “Interestingly, we just polled 4,000 bitcoin investors and their number one investment for 2019 is actually gold. So gold lost to bitcoin and now it’s going the other way,” he added.

Bitcoin enjoyed a tremendous run in 2017, with its price peaking at over $20,000 in December of that year. But now, just over a year later, the digital currency is down more than 80% from its all-time high. Meanwhile, gold’s value has increased by 2.5% over the same period, CNBC notes. According to Tim Seymour, founder and chief investment officer of Seymour Asset Management, the cryptocurrency may struggle to overcome this trend.

“Not only have we lost all liquidity on the underlying [commodity] but truly outside of the existential blockchain argument, it’s been very difficult to argue store of value which is really what we started hearing about,” Seymour said on CNBC’s TV programme “ETF Edge” last Wednesday. “Gold is a store of value and there’s no disputing that.”

In today’s trading, the Bitcoin price stood at $3,460.37, as of 16:22 GMT. The digital coin has lost 3.6% of its value in the past 24 hours, according to data from digital currency tracker Coinmarketcap. Its total market capitalisation currently stands at $60.5 billion, which represents 53.8% of the combined value of all digital currencies.

Earlier today, Bitcoin fell to as low as $3,439.23, which was its lowest price level since December 17, Coinmarketcap data shows.