Is Bitcoin in a ‘stealth bear market’ relative to gold? Peter Schiff believes…
Bloomberg analyst predicts future growth for BTC ETFs, despite lagging behind gold right now.
- Bitcoin declined by 32% relative to gold in 2025 amid record inflows into Gold ETFs
- Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas believes BTC ETFs will be 3x Gold ETFs’ size soon
According to long-time Bitcoin [BTC] critic Peter Schiff, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has been in a “stealth bear market” relative to gold. Schiff noted that one BTC fetched fewer ounces of gold (24% less) now, compared to the crypto’s peak value in 2021.
“One Bitcoin now buys 27.7 ounces of gold. At its peak in 2021, one Bitcoin bought 36.3 ounces of gold…In terms of gold, the price of Bitcoin has fallen by 24%. So Bitcoin has been in a stealth bear market for the past three and a half years.”
Bitcoin lags behind gold
Worth pointing out, however, that some analysts quickly pointed out that Schiff’s timeframe was selective to fit his bias. Both arguments are right though. When zoomed in on the 10-year window, Bitcoin has outperformed gold by over 12,000%. Over the last two years alone, BTC has jumped by 200% against gold.
However, in 2025, BTC lost 32% of its value relative to gold, slipping from 41 to 28 on the BTC/gold chart. Simply put, gold has been a relatively better store of value in Q1 2025. Especially after the cryptocurrency erased ‘Trump pump’ gains while gold hit a new high of $3k.
In fact, the scale of institutional investors’ interest in gold, relative to BTC, is clearly evident too.
According to the latest data, Gold ETF’s market cap surpassed the collective size of U.S Spot BTC ETFs. Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas linked the “flipping” to gold’s 12% spike in 2025.
“The Empire strikes back: Gold ETFs have reclaimed the asset crown over bitcoin ETFs thanks to 12% gain this year.”
Even so, Balchunas maintains that BTC ETFs will triple gold ETFs in the long run, suggesting more upside potential for Bitcoin relative to gold.
“Despite the legit win for gold I still think BTC ETFs will grow to triple that of gold ETFs but as I’ve said repeatedly it aint gonna be a smooth path, but rather two steps forward, one step back.”
Here, it should be pointed out that the BTC Pearson correlation indicator revealed that the “digital gold” decoupled from its physical alternative in early February. In early 2025, the cryptocurrency has been under the whims of Trump’s tariff wars, alongside U.S equities.
Popular analysts Peter Brandt has been siding with Balchunas and his opinions though. He projected last year that BTC would outperform gold by over 120%, citing bullish patterns on the BTC/gold chart.
