Sales of gold coins at Frankfurt-based CoinInvest jumped fivefold as the largest digital asset Bitcoin (EXANTE: Bitcoin) collapsed after surging 1,400 percent last year, Bloomberg reported.
“Tuesday was a hell of a crazy day,” its Director Daniel Marburger said.
“Emails and phones did not stand still with customers asking how they could turn their crypto into gold,” he added.
Marburger said CoinInvest sold almost 30 kilograms of gold, worth $1.2 million in the spot market, as Bitcoin dropped 23 percent on Tuesday.
Clients at GoldCore Ltd. have also been diversifying away from cryptocurrencies and into physical gold in both bars and coins, according to Director Mark O’Byrne.
“We think increasingly people are realizing that these digital assets have much higher risk levels than the traditional safe haven asset,” O’Byrne said.
The situation was different at the end of last year, when investors were dumping gold to buy Bitcoin during November and December 2017, as cryptocurrency prices were achieving record highs.
Bitcoin dropped below $10,000 on Wednesday and has since recovered slightly to around $11,500. It reached a record high of $19,511 on Dec. 18. Gold was 0.8 percent lower at $1,327.