Bitcoin Is 2019's Best-Performing Asset, Even After Recent Price Downturn

Bitcoin prices have more than doubled in 2019, far outpacing the 31 percent return for U.S. tech stocks, which Goldman Sachs deems the best-performing asset class year-to-date.

Executives at data firm Messari say bitcoin prices, currently around $8,200, could rally to a new high in the year's remaining months, topping the $12,902 level reached in June.

Investors would be hard-pressed to name a better-performing asset class so far in 2019 than bitcoin.

With the global economy slowing and trillions of dollars of government bonds from Europe and Japan trading with negative yields, bitcoin's price gains this year could conceivably attract a new wave of investors who previously wouldn't even take a look.

Bitcoin's price gains are nearly four times the level of those hottest-of-hot tech stocks.

Many investors first noticed bitcoin in 2017 as prices famously rose more than 20-fold, reaching an all-time high of $20,089 in December of that year.

One of the long-term arguments for bitcoin is that, unlike stocks and bonds whose prices are often highly sensitive to the decisions of central banks and governments, the cryptocurrency is independent of sovereign authorities.

For now even professionals in the space acknowledge that bitcoin is highly speculative; many traders are just betting on whether the next series of price ticks will be up or down.

Martin noted that prices for bitcoin have declined in recent months, from a 2019 high of about $12,900 on June 26, partly because of waning enthusiasm in the industry over the near-term prospects of a wave of institutional money coming into the market.

Some industry executives think bitcoin prices might be setting up for a rally.