Substantial inflows into global bitcoin exchange-traded products, including the recently approved U.S.-based exchange-traded funds, could, in the long term, threaten gold's position as the world's primary store-of-value, an analyst said.

According to ETC Group Head of Research André Dragosch, there is an increasing divergence between global fund flows into bitcoin and equivalent flows into gold. "This might be an early sign for bitcoin stealing gold’s crown as the primary store-of-value," Dragosch told The Block.

The analyst added that the large majority of new investments overall into bitcoin appear to be related to investments into U.S.-based ETFs. "There is an increasing importance of those new ETF flows for bitcoin’s overall performance," he said.

Data from ETC Group shows that …