Over the past two months bitcoin and copper have had an almost perfect trading correlation and the likley source of the association lies in China.
Both rallied strongly from June to early September. Copper jumped 23 percent from June 6th to September 6th and bitcoin added 73 percent soaring from $2,824 on June 9th to $4,905 on September 1st. According to an analysis by Bloomberg the correlation is more than 0.95, meaning that price movement is virtualy unison. When Chinese regulators clamped down on bitcoin trading the copper rally also reversed.
Chinese markets have become increasingly dominant in pricing industrial metals and a similar interest is taking place in cryptocurrencies. Correlation is also high between bitcoin trading and prices in nickel and palladium.
WorldWideMarkets
Charts: WWM Alpha Trader, Thomson/Reuters
Bitcoin
Copper