South Korean gold prices are at their lowest in almost a year while bitcoin prices rise exponentially, but a Korean analyst on Friday rebutted claims that gold’s decline was down to the bitcoin craze.

Gold was trading at 44,180 won ($40.60) per gram 10 minutes ahead of closing at 44,200 won Friday, according to an estimate by the Korea Exchange. On Wednesday, the price dipped below 44,000 won for the first time since Dec. 23, 2016.

By contrast, bitcoin has skyrocketed past 20 million won, while involving price fluctuation at an extreme level.

In the past month until Thursday, gold has fallen 3.8 percent, while bitcoin jumped 150 percent, according to data respectively by the KRX and cryptocurrency price tracker Coinass.

Some overseas analysts said that gold investors are fleeing to cryptocurrencies. Lawrence McDonald of AGC Analytics told CNBC the previous Friday that cryptocurrencies were “definitely eating into the gold play.”

Local analysts showed contrast to the opinion. The price changes of gold and bitcoin did not affect one another, wrote KB Securities commodity analyst Koo Kyung-hwe in a report Friday.

“The two, as assets, have very few similarities excluding the fact that there are finite amounts of both of them,” Koo wrote. “The ups of bitcoin and downs of gold are merely one of the myriad correlations of two random charts.”

Koo added bitcoin would not replace gold, or a “safe real asset.”

The report, meanwhile, projected that gold would remain downbeat, followed by weakness in the real interest rate, or the nominal interest rate minus the inflation rate, despite the Federal Open Market Committee’s decision for a US rate hike Wednesday.

By Son Ji-hyoung 
(consnow@heraldcorp.com)