It is no secret that bitcoin is currently failing its many narratives, including the claim that it can serve as an inflation hedge or a safe haven amid uncertainty.
While gold is up more than 80% during this period of high inflation, geopolitical skirmishes and interest rate uncertainty, bitcoin is down 14% year over year.
In theory, assets that protect against inflation should rise when the value of money falls. For gold and the rest of the precious metal complex, that theory has worked. For digital gold, not so much.
This divergence has raised new questions: why would anyone buy bitcoin now when precious metals and stocks offer better returns?
CoinDesk asked a group of longtime bitcoin bulls, and here’s how they defend buying bitcoin:
Comfort in the known (Jessy Gilger, senior advisor at Gannett Wealth Advisors, a bitcoin-native wealth management firm)
“Gold’s current wave is a temporary political distraction. In times of fear, institutions tend to retreat to what they know because they often lack the foresight to embrace a true phase shift in technology. We are currently seeing a historical standard deviation move in the GLD/BTC power law relationship, but hard assets are a long game.”
While gold has the legacy, bitcoin has proven to be technically stable at the protocol level for over fifteen years. Expect a regression to the mean, with bitcoin eventually catching up as the market realizes that digital scarcity is more efficient than physical legacy.”
Transfer of Ownership (Mark Connors, Chief Investment Officer at Risk Dimensions)
“Zooming out is then 2025. The signal is delivered if you zoom in.” If you “zoom in”, Bitcoin does not fail the macro test relative to gold. It is currently constrained by three internal forces that most observers miss.
“It’s not a demand problem; it’s a supply distribution event. Institutional ETF inflows are massive, but they’re not pushing up price; they’re simply absorbing a decade’s worth of supply being dumped by early adopters. We’re witnessing a transfer of ownership, not a failure of interest.”
Technical Stock Problem (Charlie Morris, CIO ByteTree)
“The curious thing is that the gold rushes and bitcoin maxis use the same narratives: limited supply, money printing, inflation, war, chaos and so on. Yet I believe that gold is the reserve asset for the real world and bitcoin for the digital world. Today’s problems are in the real world. Bitcoin is not failing, it’s just retreating in line with internet stocks that it has always been close to.”
Delayed rotation coming? (Peter Lane, CEO Jacobi Asset Management)
“The ‘digital gold’ narrative hasn’t really panned out when it’s been tested. Bitcoin hasn’t acted as a true inflation hedge or safe haven during periods of geopolitical stress and monetary uncertainty. Instead, gold and silver have been the overwhelming winners in 2025.”
There is a long-standing mass market comfort with precious metals that Bitcoin simply hasn’t yet earned. I still think we will eventually see a delayed rotation to BTC, but for now investors are gravitating towards what they know and trust.”
Needs another demand driver (Anthony Pompliano, Chairman and CEO of ProCap Financial)
“Bitcoin has largely been an inflation hedge for the past half-decade, but with deflation likely on the horizon, bitcoin will need to find other demand to continue driving the asset higher. I remain optimistic about bitcoin’s future prospects, but recognize that the macro environment and bitcoin market participants are rapidly evolving.”
A permanent solution to inflation? (David Parkinson – CEO Musquet, BtC lightning)
The ‘digital gold has failed’ take is too early noise. Bitcoin’s fixed supply and network growth continues to deliver large returns relative to inflation and indeed above gold over a multi-year horizon. Bitcoin is now emerging as the Internet’s original monetary asset. It’s not a “hedge” against inflation – it’s a permanent solution to it. Gold and other traditional inflation hedge assets are enjoying their moment, ultimately Bitcoin will survive and outshine them all.
Bitcoin’s time is coming (Andre Dragosch – Bitwise)
“Think that the precious metals rally is ultimately due to something you could call ‘muscle memory’ – in times of uncertainty investors turn to the assets they are familiar with first – and that seems to be gold and silver right now.
To be fair, bitcoin is still perceived as a risky asset, even though it has better store-of-value properties than gold. But I’m pretty confident that bitcoin will start to catch a bid once traditional hard assets have been inflated to obscene levels and capital will start to rotate to more attractively valued assets like bitcoin.
Based on a relative Mayer multiple between bitcoin and gold, bitcoin is already at FTX blow-up levels last seen in 2022 against gold. There is also a massive underpricing of bitcoin relative to both the 2026 macro environment and the level of the global money supply, which will most likely resolve to the upside over the coming months.
Read more: Bitcoin in deep bear market against gold, history suggests downside may continue
