Can altcoins act as hedges or safe-havens for Bitcoin?

Abstract

Bitcoin remains the most popular cryptocurrency and has attracted significant research attention, especially in the hedging and safe-haven literature. As many investors in bitcoin are concentrated heavily in cryptocurrencies as opposed to other assets, a question arises whether alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) can used as safe-havens and hedges against Bitcoin? We find that only meme coins offer hedging benefits but a wider range � Defi, meme coins, smart contracts, metaverse and privacy cryptocurrencies � can all act as safe-havens against bitcoin. We further show that their ability to act as hedges and safe-havens varies depending on whether the market is in a bubble or non-bubble period.