Gold has skyrocketed to an unprecedented all-time high, exceeding $3,025 per ounce, reflecting an increase of over 15% since the beginning of the year. In contrast, Bitcoin (BTC) has not kept pace, demonstrating a decline of 10% year-to-date.
A multitude of factors have driven gold’s ascent, including substantial inflows into gold ETFs and its established role as a safe-haven asset amid political unrest.
Moreover, ongoing discussions about new tariffs in the U.S. under President Trump have further stoked demand for U.S. equities. Gold’s historical surge has resulted in a price increase of 40% year-over-year, vastly outpacing Bitcoin’s 16% increment.
Typically, when gold enters a bullish phase, Bitcoin tends to stagnate or drop. The two assets seldom move in sync, although there are rare occasions when both experience simultaneous rises or falls.
During the period from 2019 to Q3 2020, gold saw a robust rally while Bitcoin remained relatively stagnant, paralleling the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Conversely, Bitcoin experienced its bullish trajectory in 2021 while gold stagnated. By 2022, as global interest rates began to rise, both assets were under pressure, but they started to recover in 2023 and 2024. Currently, in 2025, the market is witnessing a fresh divergence between these two assets.
Charlie Morris, founder of ByteTree, has labeled this gold rally as a “proper gold rush”—a phenomenon the market has not experienced since 2011.
“Gold above $3,000, silver above $24, and gold stocks gaining traction—it occurred to me that the crypto community has never experienced a genuine gold rush. The last time this transpired was in 2011, when Bitcoin was merely emerging at $20. They will witness it now.”
