Correlation analysis of the price quotations of gold and the bitcoin cryptocurrency called "digital gold"

Abstract

The paper analyses the relationship between the Bitcoin digital currency quotation and the gold price quotation in 2018–2022. The relationship between the BTC exchange rate quotation and the stock indices of the United States (S&P 500) and Polish (WIG) and the CRB commodity index was also analysed. The study used a linear Pearson correlation. The study was conducted for several different periods. The first period covered 2017–2022, the second period was 2020–2022, and the third – last year, i.e. 2022. The study was also conducted for two periods of increased market uncertainty. The first is the time of the collapse of the markets caused by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and high market volatility from March 1, 2020, to April 30, 2020. The second is the beginning of the war in Ukraine, covering quotations from February 24, 2022, to April 24, 2022.

Research indicates that the Bitcoin cryptocurrency correlates to a greater extent with stock exchange indices than with the price quotation rate of gold. In the last period studied, i.e., at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, it was even possible to observe a negative correlation between the price quotations of the digital currency Bitcoin and gold prices.