Gold hits new highs as bitcoin struggles to hold key levels, reopening a debate crypto investors have never quite settled. If bitcoin is supposed to be digital gold, this is the kind of bond it is meant to win. Right now it isn’t.
The stakes are higher as gold rises on interest rate cut expectations and geopolitical risk, while bitcoin has struggled to hold key psychological levels and remains sensitive to the same forces that tend to hit stocks and other risk assets.
Gold is up more than 70% this year, while other precious metal silver is up about 150%, putting both on track for their strongest annual gains since 1979.
Platinum also pushed to record levels, extending a broader rise across precious metals as investors return to the category as a hedge against geopolitical volatility and longer-term currency risk.
Part of what holds bitcoin back is positioning. The market is still digesting a long stretch of leveraged trading, and every rebound has been met by rapid profit-taking over the past week.
Macro is another feature. Even as traders anticipate rate cuts, bitcoin tends to need clear conditions for risk-taking, not just a softer path for policy. Bond yields have been volatile, the dollar has taken a beating, and markets have repeatedly shifted to a “preserve capital” sentiment. It usually helps gold first.
David Miller, chief investment officer at Catalyst Funds and portfolio manager of the Strategy Shares Gold Enhanced Yield ETF, said the deviation is hard to ignore.
“Gold has had a record year, up over 60%. But so has bitcoin. You still have this situation where it’s clearly not digital gold,” Miller said, adding that “gold can have a record year while bitcoin is down in the same year.”
Miller said bitcoin can still make sense in portfolios over the long term, particularly as a hedge against fiscal expansion and currency depreciation. But he argued that gold still plays a different role because it is already treated as a reserve asset by central banks.
“What gold does that bitcoin absolutely cannot is serve as an actual alternative reserve asset to a currency,” Miller said. “Bitcoin is really a retail game, whereas gold is very institutional.”
Data from the World Gold Council shows that holdings of gold-backed ETFs rose every month this year except May, pointing to consistent accumulation rather than a short-term trading burst. Holdings in State Street’s SPDR Gold Trust, the largest gold ETF, are up more than 20% in 2025.
Several Wall Street banks have also taken bullish views into next year. Goldman Sachs has predicted that prices could rise towards $4,900 per barrel. ounces in 2026 under the baseline scenario, with risks skewed higher.
