Nassim Taleb, author of the bestselling book "The Black Swan Effect" and advisor to Universa Investments, stated in an interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box" on August 6th that the sudden drop in the cryptocurrency market on August 5th indicates that the asset is not an effective hedge against systemic market collapse. Nassim Taleb said:

Bitcoin once again proves that it cannot hedge your assets from collapse

On August 5th, the total market value of the entire cryptocurrency market evaporated $510 billion in a large-scale sell-off. According to CryptoQuant's data, after this sell-off, over 60% of the top 50 cryptocurrencies have recovered all their gains from 2024. The triggering factor for this sharp decline was the Bank of Japan raising interest rates on July 31st, followed by a significant rise in the yen exchange rate in the money market. According to a report by ING Bank, this has led to an increase in the cost of Japanese yen denominated debt for foreign borrowers, with the total outstanding debt reaching $2 trillion before the collapse.

Nassim Taleb pointed out that Bitcoin's performance is worse than other assets because it is a speculative asset that performs similarly to high priced real estate in Manhattan, primarily tracking stock market volatility. In contrast, he believes that gold is a superior means of storing value because "a gold chain, placed on the ground for 10000 years, is still gold