this bitcoin running out of steam the much hyped safe passage drops 12 percent of the u.s. dollar regaining strength as we ask how sustainable are cryptocurrency. also coming off the equity market start of the year with a family with a rally continued to cope with related glitches go into into the policy. and talking of the content forget about traveling to your customers to help them handle their new equipment it's time to put on the spot glass says. welcome to do

business i want to get johns and glenn good to have you with us now bitcoins winning streak has come to an end at least temporarily the cryptocurrency dropped more than 12 percent today if fieri m fell as much as 20 percent this after president elect joe biden promised trillions in extra pandemic relief spending a move that caused a surge in us bond yields lifting the u.s. dollar now whether or not this is just a blip for bitcoin also depends on institutional investors. the american bank j.p. morgan is calling it the new gold but it wasn't always like that the banks feel used to see that crypto currencies were nothing but a fraud even threatening to fire any employees who traded in bitcoin but the bank changed as the valuation soared now j.p. morgan is watching bitcoin climb to dizzying new highs i think institutional

investors are now realizing that this is a real asset class their customers are asking the about it and they had to migrate from saying no don't touch it it's it's bad to. help you by will help you manage it bitcoin increased 400 percent in value since january 1st it's been reaching record highs since december according to g p morgan because again is gold's loss the bank maintains that many investors saw gold as well as shares in gold funds and they vetted those investments to big point but is because in really the new gold opinions in the financial industry differ widely some see big khans recent price gains as a speculative bubble that is set to barstow others see big point as a sensible way to invest their capital effectively. and for more on this i'm joined

now by christy placer from d.w. business christy good to see you it was again off gold today only shed one percent does this mean that bitcoin could be over rated. yeah well that's a charge that's been you know held against bitcoin for the last decade but i think as we just heard in the piece and also as we've seen especially in 2020. the cryptic currency has really started to legitimize itself in the eyes of a lot of people who are formally skeptical like j.p. morgan you know as the as they just said you know used to think it's fraud now saying this could overtake gold so i think we're going to be moving away from this rhetoric around bitcoin going forward ok when you say you think you know we're moving away and there have certainly been tendencies towards the end of the year what's the timeline we talking about because clearly do a crisis like now do in the pandemic investors looking for safe havens they will looking at gold and equipped to currencies but then again gold seems to be more durable yeah i mean of course gold has the longevity behind to back it up and

people are not going to be moving away from this asset very quickly especially during economic times as uncertain as these but in the end you know what is a valuable it's things that we as a society society agree are valuable right and for especially for digital natives they see a lot of tangible value in digital currencies in currencies that they can use buy and sell whenever and wherever they are regardless of the political situation so while there might not be. something you can hold your hand in the way there is with gold there is a certain tangible value there. so this tangible characteristic doesn't seem to be disaster important for as you mentioned digital native natives millenniums they're the ones who actually invest in bitcoin the most right now. yeah that's for sure this is definitely the demographic that's leading the interesting bit coin and has been the last 12 years since the cryptocurrency showed up on the scene we're

talking i'm alone else we're also starting to see jhansi as well as they're coming of age but now that we're seeing a lot more institutional interest like from investment banks from pay pal like we saw on 2020 of course the demographic interest in changing as well so we're starting to see you know older investors who are who are interested in in a safe asset or presumably safe like bitcoin especially with a pandemic ravaging global economy right now all right as we said i know it bitcoin those cut the currencies the safe havens to especially well gee in crises and pandemic what are the chances for bitcoin to be a safe haven assett when the crises are over. yeah well that's a great question it's really going to depend on if the if it coin is able to really iron out some of this volatility or i mean we're seeing really a lot of volatility as we saw 12 percent fall today so we're going to need to see some stability there before we're going to have a safe safe haven in bitcoin in the long term all right brilliant kristie platz and

there from d.w. business thank you so much for that thank you i time now for a quick look at some of the other business stories making news right j.p. morgan chase is the latest u.s. bank to post political donations in the wake of last week's attack on the capital and similar steps taken by all the businesses there is international said they would not contribute to any republican lawmakers voted to overturn joe biden so when. morgan stanley and goldman sachs delisting 500 investment products listed on hong kong stock exchange that follows an executive order by president trump bahrain investment and companies with alleged links to china's military last week the new york stock exchange delisted streatch chinese telecoms. 2 out of 5 people would be willing to fly less once global pandemic restrictions on if this according to a survey from the european investment bank the poll offer more than $30000.00

people found that the change in behavior was driven by concerns about climate change. chinese also make a deal a which owns sweden's volvo will form a joint venture with tech giant by doing a leading developer of self driving technology the companies have not set a timeline as to when their products might be released. while the negative markets all over the world have started the year with a bang indices like the german dax are trading near record highs as find out now how this week is starting over to our financial correspondent conor have bosun everand for. tell me the earnings season gets underway now companies are reporting how they manage the covert crisis how are they doing. well good morning monica between mediocre and really bad this is the range where most earnings

reports and their outlooks will be in of course with a few exceptions like the vaccine makers who are going through a surge in demand and an extra boom on the other hand we're going to hear a lot about the dire situation of the german retail sector about the brick and mortar retail sector just over this weekend another german fashion retail chain adler announced that it has run out of money that it is going into insolvency and that's actually bankruptcy bankruptcy number 5 in the german fashion retail market large retail change that is since the pandemic began and of course i mean this pandemic now we've said it already where in the 2nd year now and it's been hovering above like a dock clouds yet the valuations of many shares are not reflecting that to their highest how worried are people way you are that all of this is just a bubble waiting to burst well of course many people on the markets are worried as

you know the pandemic is unprecedented all of the outlooks are highly speculative at least in terms of valuations i can tell you that here in germany they're not. yet where they were in the past when other bubbles burst and you know huge selloffs happened the price earnings ratio for the german share index dax is slightly below 20 that's not a level experts consider to be overblown but of course everyone on the markets is aware that this rally has been driven by extraordinary factors and that nobody knows what happens when those helps for the markets will be phased out. and from that thank you so much. now we've been hearing it many times now the coronavirus pandemic is boosting digitalisation from schools to offices and

factories instead of flying around the world companies now travel less and use what acknowledge the like smart glasses international customs. the brand new machine is ready for delivery to a customer in southeast asia usually the buyer would fly to germany to inspect the product before delivery but not storing depend demi the german machine builder should own sons had the choice of leaving the one and a half 1000000 euro machine here until after the pandemic or letting the customer visit the plant virtually all they have to do is done these smart glasses to get a closer look at their expense of new purchase a camera and microphone that the customer see exactly what the technician over in germany is doing all from the comfort of his own office in asia the idea was floating around for a while until the pandemic forced a change of thinking at the company. you think the role of virus forces us to invest more in digitalisation the customer used to say they had to fly to our plant

well they can't do that anymore so we need alternatives we have. lasting alternatives that even work after the pandemic like servicing machines thousands of miles away with the help of a chore reality germany's mechanical engineering association welcomes such progress . some of it will bounce back we've never worked from home as much as we do now we've never traveled as little as we do now it won't all bounce back some of what we're doing now is here to stay. metal supply ellen better from kaiserslautern relies on companies that want to invest automation even during the crisis they snapped up their 1st robot 15 years ago to keep pace with competitors but they didn't stop there soon they were devising other companies and selling them tailor made automation plans a 2nd source of income and the crisis homes i've met since march customers have made so many inquiries about plant engineering and automation technology we haven't

had this many in the last 3 years we think it means that either the customer has been forced to think about automation perhaps due to the pandemic or maybe they just have more time at the moment to think about automation is even today ellen barrett admits that he himself was scared of the cost of new technology now he has the know how to reassure his customers robots are getting cheaper all the time programming them is easy and no one loses a job even though the robots do most of the work. before we go here's one company that couldn't distance itself asked enough from the storming of the u.s. capitol last week even though it probably didn't need to someone snapped this photo of a discarded can of axe body spray on the capitol grounds the photo was tweeted out and earned a quick reply from x. itself the company condemns the capital storming and believes in the peaceful

transition of power and just in case you were wondering what your favorite body spray brands thinks about the state of u.s. democracy now you know. and even though you don't see me that's your business update here we are at this hour a day w. from in the team thanks for watching. nico is in germany to learn german. published in the uk why not learn with him online on the mobile and free to shaft the w z learning course because vic. why are people so forced to hide in trucks. there are many reasons. there are many answers. and there are many

stories. make up. the be. made for minds. bloggers students activists and bad children they have all fled bella ruse and the old fart tarion regime in power that surprises and persecutes dissidents over the past months or ever more people have been fleeing the country they had to neighboring lithuania and e.u. member and southern most of the 3 baltic republics there are no taleo coolio governor and her team do what they can to help. just 25 kilometers from here and

dello russo but the people are fighting for their freedom. our freedom of expression for the right just to take to the streets. natalya cognac of our lives in lithuania as capital will. the us we spent a few days with her that. natalee was born in belarus but she's lived in lithuania for 20 years now enjoying success as a real estate agent since the summer of 2020 she's taken on the town of helping her compound treats to cross the border and escape the dictator's regime and bella rose . the people who come to us have to get out really fast like running from a fire.