Gold hits all-time high, leaves bitcoin behind in 2025 rally
Gold achieved another milestone in its battle with bitcoin (BTC) today when, despite a 14X size difference, it not only rallied more than its digital rival in 2025, but also outperformed over the past 12 months.
Indeed, gold hit an all-time high of $4,381 per ounce — a rally of 60.5% above its price 12 months ago. BTC, meanwhile, managed a 60% increase and sits 15% below its own peak.
Polymarket traders remain bearish on BTC for the final days of October, too. The highest odds rate for a price that the asset will reach by Halloween is $100,000 at 42% betting odds.
On Kalshi, a competing binary options betting marketplace, traders are accepting bets at 64% odds that BTC will fall below $100,000 this year.
Read more: Standard measure of bitcoin-gold correlation goes to zero
Bitcoin was supposed to be digital gold. What happened?
Gold holds the wealth of many nations and has served as currency for millenia, yet many investors proposed BTC as a competitor.
Eliminating four shortcomings of gold in its role as currency — poor divisibility, physical weight, perpetual inflation by miners, and difficulty assaying purity — Bitcoin evangelists have claimed that BTC will eventually displace gold’s monetary premium entirely.
With a $29.7 trillion market capitalization based on the World Gold Council’s 2025 report of 216,265 metric tonnes, gold is at least 14 times larger than the $2.1 trillion market cap of BTC.
Indeed, gold could be even larger than that estimate, with non-consensus estimates of secret gold in China or Russia exceeding 16X and 4X their official disclosures.
Whether closer to $30 trillion or much higher, the percentage rally of the world’s most valuable commodity is impressive relative to BTC.
Moreover, gold has rallied on all major short-term timeframes.
- Over the last week, gold has rallied 6% whereas BTC has actually declined 11%
- During the past month, gold has rallied 16% whereas BTC is down 7%
- Year to date, gold has rallied 62% versus a mere 12% for BTC
- Over the past year, gold has outperformed the 60% rally of BTC by 0.5%
It takes longer timeframes to find any outperformance of BTC against the yellow metal.
From much lower starting points, BTC has certainly outperformed gold. BTC is only 17 years old, after all.
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