In the wake of the uncertainty that has been troubling global financial markets and the financial shocks that key events like Trump’s electoral win and the Brexit vote brought about, bitcoin has emerged as a ‘safe haven asset’, either as a means of transferring money across borders or as a means of protecting it from bail-ins and erosion by inflation.

For instance, in China, where capital controls are applied, wealthy Chinese investors are deprived of investment choices, therefore they resort to bitcoin as an asset to store value in.

Bitcoin is immune to capital controls and currency manipulation and does not prevent people from moving money to where they wish.

To a great extent, this is owed to the cryptocurrency’s intrinsic property of being border-less, friction-less and largely unregulated.

Whether one views bitcoin as a phenomenon or a legitimate institution that is here to stay, bitcoin is on track to become the latter.