Gold Has Quietly Pulled Off One of Its Strongest Performances in Recent Memory—and It's Leaving Bitcoin in the Dust

Gold has pulled off one of its strongest performances in recent memory—and it's leaving Bitcoin in the dust.

Gold has pulled off one of its strongest performances in recent memory, and it’s leaving Bitcoin in the dust.

Since the start of the year, the precious metal has gained 23%, while Bitcoin, its digital counterpart and competitor, has fallen by 12%. That contrast is turning heads across the financial world and becoming a sore spot for crypto advocates.

What makes this more striking is gold’s size. With an estimated $21 trillion worth of the metal above ground—based on conservative assessments—the price rally is even more impressive. Bitcoin’s total market value, by comparison, is roughly $1.6 trillion, making it far more susceptible to price swings from smaller inflows or outflows of capital.

A recent chart shared by Protos illustrates this widening gap between gold and Bitcoin using their signature colors—yellow and orange. It’s a visual reminder for Bitcoin holders that, despite all the hype, traditional assets are still capable of commanding the spotlight.

And the actual scale of the gold market might be even larger. Some analysts, like Simon Hunt, believe China could be sitting on a hidden gold stash as large as 40,000 tonnes—five times more than what the U.S. officially holds. Estimates for Russia’s reserves go as high as 11,000 tonnes. Others suggest that the real global value of gold might surpass $100 trillion, depending on how deeply you dig into history and hidden reserves.

Regardless of the exact numbers, the key point remains: it takes vastly more capital to push gold’s price than it does to move Bitcoin. That’s a function of both size and stability. According to Credit Suisse, total private wealth worldwide exceeded $450 trillion in 2022, and even small reallocations from that pool—just a couple of percentage points—can have a noticeable impact on gold’s price.

In this year’s performance race, Bitcoin might still win over the long term—but for now, gold has taken the lead, and done it with the weight of history and size on its side.