While Bitcoin (BTC) advocates often consider the biggest cryptocurrency as a digital version of gold, a new report from Global Bank Standard Chartered argued that investors should see it more as a technical share with some additional benefits.

Led by Geoff Kendrick, the Stanchart team Bitcoin’s connection with Nasdaq said “almost always” has been stronger than with gold, the old school’s safe harbor active. While BTC may have a role as a place to hide in the event of financial instability such as the regional banking crisis in 2023 or what may be the unsustainable US debt course, the report says, the reality is that such hedges are rarely needed, which is thus increasing behavior as more as a traditional tech share.

“Investors can see BTC as both a hedge against traditional funding and as part of their technological allocation,” Kendrick said. But at least “in the short term, BTC could possibly be better considered a technical stock than a hedge against tradfi questions,” he added.

The report, which played with the idea of ​​Bitcoin as part of a tech portfolio, suggested a redevelopment of the index for the so-called Magnificent 7 (mag 7) Stocker-Mega-Cap Tech names that have operated the overall market return of late, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Meta and Tesla (TSLA). This new “Mag 7B” would swap Tesla to Bitcoin.

The result? Mag7B consistently produced higher risk-adjusted returns than the original group in the last seven years, strengthening BTC’s role in a technically-focused portfolio, Kendrick said. MAG7B exceeded an average of Mag7 by approx. 1% with almost 2% lower volatility on an annual basis, an important benefit to institutional investors and large asset alocators, he continued.

“BTC should be seen as serving multiple purposes in investor portfolios. This would open the possibility of even more institutional purchases,” Kendrick noted.

Asset leaders have advocate for including Bitcoin in investment portfolios for diversification purposes. For example, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, recommended to consider up to 2% BTC allocation in traditional stock and bond portfolios. Meanwhile, asset managers such as 21Shares and BitWise have launched stockbroked funds (ETFs) that combine gold and bitcoin as complementary assets.