A poll of buyers shows that Bitcoin is a more popular safe haven than the US dollar, the yen, or the Swiss franc. The chance of the US not paying its debts is higher than it's ever been, which could send world markets into a whole new world of pain.

Investors have few places to hide besides gold, which is the longest defense in the book. Bloomberg's latest Markets Live Pulse study found that gold is by far the best choice for people who want to protect themselves in case Washington's game of chicken over the debt ceiling leads to a crash.

More than half of the people who work in finance said they would buy gold if the US government didn't pay its bills. Even more surprising is how few other barriers there are. The world study of 637 people found that US Treasuries were the second most popular thing to buy in case of a default. There's something ironic about that, since that's probably what the U.S. would be failing on. But it's important to remember that even pessimistic analysts think bill holders will get paid, even if it's late, and that Treasuries went up even though Standard & Poor's took away the US's top credit rating during the most tense debt crisis in the past. Some people liked the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc as safe haven currencies, but neither was as popular as the US dollar or, perhaps even more surprisingly, Bitcoin, which some buyers see as a kind of digital gold.

Politicians and business leaders have been lining up to warn about what could happen if the debt-ceiling standoff doesn't end. President Joe Biden, who will meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other political leaders on Tuesday, said, "The whole world is in trouble." The head of JPMorgan Chase & Co., Jamie Dimon, said it could be "potentially catastrophic." "Very serious consequences" was strong language, even for the International Monetary Fund. A failure by the largest economy in the world should probably be impossible.

But it's a real possibility right now. About 60% of MLIV Pulse respondents said that the risks are bigger now than they were in 2011, which was the worst time that the debt cap was reached. With one-year credit default swaps, the cost of insurance against non-payment has risen far above what it was in the past, even though it still shows that the chance of a failure is low. "Given how divided the voters and Congress are, the risk is higher than it used to be," said Jason Bloom, head of fixed income, options, and ETF strategies at Invesco. "Because both sides are so set in their ways, there is a chance they won't come to an agreement in time." Gold has been doing very well so far this year, so the hedge doesn't come cheap. First, it was boosted by more people in China wanting to buy expensive things. Then, it was boosted by a crisis in the banking sector and the fear of a US failure. Now, it's just a few dollars away from its all-time high of $2,075.47 an ounce.

In the MLIV study, most investors think that 10-year Treasuries will go up if the fight over the debt cap goes down to the wire but the US doesn't fail. But experts have different ideas about what might happen if the US government really does fall off the edge. About 60% of small buyers think that if there is a failure, the value of 10-year Treasury debt will go down. Last week, the yield on the benchmark US note was 3.46 percent, which is about 63 basis points less than its high for the year. In the meantime, the standoff over the debt ceiling has raised the yield on some very short-term stocks that are seen as most likely to be paid late.

This has caused the bills curve to get messed up. The rates are highest around the beginning of June, which is close to when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US might run out of room to borrow. If the department can make it past mid-June, it will likely get a little breathing room from planned tax payments and other measures. However, it will face new problems in late July, when market prices also show some strain and worry.