Garrick Hileman, head of research at Blockchain.com and a researcher at the London School of Economics, said he and other analysts had been watching the movements of the two currencies.

“We are observing a strong inverse correlation between the RMB’s value and bitcoin, meaning that recent RMB declines over trade tensions have been closely matched by increases in the value of bitcoin,” he said using the short form of the Chinese currency’s official name, the renminbi.

“We can’t be 100 per cent certain that bitcoin’s recent price increase is being driven by concerns over the trade tensions and declines in the RMB’s exchange rate as correlation does not necessarily equal causation,” Hileman said.

“But this is not the first time we’ve seen significant increases in the value of bitcoin taking place alongside yuan concerns. We also continue to see growing recognition of bitcoin as ‘digital gold’ and it being used as a hedge against various macroeconomic risks.”