Bitcoins slide to around $60,000 earlier this month looked familiar, not to gold rushers but to tech investors, crypto asset manager Grayscale said in a Monday report.
As high-growth software stocks sold off, bitcoin fell to near lockstep, reinforcing the view that the world’s largest cryptocurrency is currently trading more like a new technology than a mature store of value, the report said.
The cryptocurrency’s design, limited supply, independence from governments, and a resilient, decentralized network give it the long-term qualities of a store of value. But at just 17 years old, bitcoin is still early in its monetary journey, especially compared to gold’s millennia-long history, the firm argued.
“Bitcoin can be considered a long-term store of value: the network will likely continue to function well beyond our lifetimes, and the asset can retain its value in real terms,” wrote analyst Zach Pandl.
The crypto’s claim to be digital gold has looked increasingly thin in recent months. Instead of serving as a safe haven, it has fallen sharply from its highs and moved in tandem with risk assets as investors became defensive.
At the same time, physical gold has risen to record highs, drawing inflows, just as bitcoin saw the capital. The split has weakened the case that the cryptocurrency reliably holds value under market stress, suggesting that scarcity alone has yet to make it behave like gold when protection matters most.
Investing in bitcoin today is basically a bet on adoption, Pandl said. Until bitcoin is widely accepted as a global monetary asset, its price is likely to remain sensitive to risk appetite, rising and falling with growth-oriented portfolios rather than acting as a hedge during market stress.
Recent market mechanics supports this view. The report pointed to US-led selling pressure, outflows from spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and a sharp deleveraging across crypto derivatives, signals that look more like a growth unwind than a crisis of confidence in the network itself.
Spot bitcoin ETFs have recorded a sustained run of outflows, pointing to a cooling in institutional appetite. In recent weeks, U.S. exchange-traded funds have shed hundreds of millions of dollars as investors pulled back amid market volatility and falling prices. The pullbacks have pulled down total assets under management and left many positions underwater, underscoring softer demand for ETF-based bitcoin exposure even as inflows continue elsewhere in crypto.
Looking ahead, Grayscale sees the foundations for a recovery forming beyond short-term price action. Regulatory momentum around stablecoins and tokenized assets combined with continued innovation in blockchain infrastructure may drive the next phase of adoption. Platforms like Ethereum and Solana, along with middleware like Chainlink, stand to benefit, the firm said.
Bitcoin’s own long-term test is still unfolding. Questions around scaling, fees and even quantum resistance loom large. But the report argued that if the crypto clears these hurdles, its volatility should decrease, correlations with stocks should fade, and its behavior may eventually resemble that of gold, just with a digital backbone.
Wall Street bank JPMorgan said the crypto’s lower volatility relative to gold could make it “more attractive” in the long term.
Read more: JPMorgan says bitcoin’s lower volatility relative to gold could make it ‘more attractive’ in the long term
