Dr. Thomas Walther is awarded the Tom Fetherston Prize

Dr. Thomas Walther (Utrecht University, TU Dresden) and his co-authors Dr. Tony Klein (Queen's University Belfast, formerly TU Dresden) and Dr. Hien Pham Thu (Upvest) are awarded the Tom Fetherston Prize for their joint work entitled "Bitcoin is not the New Gold – A comparison of volatility, correlation, and portfolio performance" as the 2020 best paper in the Journal International Review of Financial Analysis.

In the study, the authors analyze the empirical properties of Bitcoin returns compared to Gold returns. Bitcoin is often dubbed the "new gold" due to its purported "safe haven" properties.  The paper, however, shows that Bitcoin does not serve as a safe haven and actually bears opposing characteristics. While many investors are attracted by Gold within distressed financial markets, Bitcoin is even positively correlated to bear markets. Through the analysis and comparison of volatility, correlation, and portfolio performance of both asset classes, the results of the paper suggest that Bitcoin and gold behave fundamentally different and are also differently linked to equity markets.

The article was already cited 420 times according to Google Scholar and ranks among the five most-cited studies ever published in the International Review of Financial Analysis, which was first released in 1992 (Scopus).

Link to the paper: ttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.irfa.2018.07.010