Global currency markets are a sea of red in the wake of this morning’s shock Brexit news. The pound is down 6.44% against the euro and weakened 10% against the dollar. But one currency–or more accurately, cryptocurrency–is surging: Bitcoin is up 7% in the last seven hours of trading, adding gains to a rally that started as the UK went to the polls yesterday (June 23).
Bitcoin was actually slumping after a bull run that started in mid-May and had put the digital currency at a two-year high. That changed around 3pm UK time on the day of the referendum. Bitcoin has gained 20% in value over the last 24 hours of trading.
Bitcoin boosters are celebrating, viewing the currency’s climb as a flight to safety by investors. Barry Silbert, a prolific investor in bitcoin and cryptocurrency startups through his firm Digital Currency Group, was among the first to point this out:
Silbert might be leaping to conclusions. All the bitcoin in circulation today is worth about $10.6 billion, a tiny amount compared to the trillions of dollars worth that are traded on the foreign exchange markets daily. But it’s clear that as investors rushed to buy traditional flight-to-safety assets like US treasuries and gold when the referendum’s results came in, bitcoin was right there, rising in lockstep alongside them.
Read more of Quartz’s coverage of Brexit:
- It’s official: Britain votes for Brexit, and will quit the European Union
- Britain votes to leave the EU. What happens next?
- As markets plummet, leave campaigners say it’s not their fault
- Brexit could trigger a wave of exits throughout the EU
- The British pound is getting crushed
- “Dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom”: Ukip’s Nigel Farage claims a Brexit victory