Gold, the traditional safe haven in times of market turmoil, has soared in value overnight, jumping 22% in sterling terms in a dramatic indication of worldwide panic over Britain’s exit from the EU.

As the polls closed at 10pm last night gold was trading at $1,256.50 an ounce, but it started to accelerate swiftly as early results from the referendum began to feed through.

On Friday morning it was trading at $1,336.66, a jump of 6.3% in dollar terms, but much more in sterling terms once the fall in the pound is taken into account.

Adrian Ash, head of research at BullionVault.com, said the surge in the gold price was the fastest move against the pound in history.

“The surging gold price clearly shows the panic sweeping financial markets. Gold jumped 22% against the pound overnight, its fastest ever move, leaping to new third-year highs above £1,000 per ounce.

“This is just the kind of crisis which gold helps savers and investors insure against.”

The Royal Mint said demand for gold bars and coins had soared after the result became clear. Visits to its bullion trading platform were up more than fivefold compared with Thursday and new account openings more than tripled.

The Royal Mint lets customers buy a small part of a 400oz gold bar held in its vault. Sales of these fractions, priced as low as £20, have more than doubled from earlier in the week when activity was already running high.

Some investors will be waking up to big gains from investments made before the referendum result. The Royal Mint said earlier this week that sales of its gold coins and bars had surged before the referendum.

On Tuesday, it said online transactions had increased by 32% in June from the previous month and revenue jumped by almost 150%.

In recent weeks the gold price has been rising not just on fears of a Brexit, but on expectations that the US Federal Reserve may be less likely to raise borrowing costs than previously thought.