Since the beginning of 2025, international gold prices have continued to set new historical records, approaching US$3,000, with an increase of more than 11.7% this year. However, Bitcoin, known as "digital gold", performed weakly, continued to fluctuate and decline, and performed far inferior to gold this year. The rise and fall between this rise and fall is not only the simple ups and downs of the prices of the two asset, but also reflects their unique positioning in the market.

Why can gold prices rise sharply this year and hit new highs?

From the macro perspective, the global central bank gold purchase wave since Q3 2024, as well as the reinflation expectations and risk aversion brought about by Trump's uncertainty, are beneficial to The rise in gold prices is the fundamental support for the rise in gold prices.

However, neither the scarcity of gold nor the central bank's gold purchase behavior have actually changed significantly recently. The most direct result of the rapid rise in gold prices recently The reason comes from the technical level: cross-market arbitrage behavior caused by tariff concerns has spawned a large demand for purchases.

Tariff expectations have become increasingly fierce since Trump's victory, exacerbating market concerns about the United States imposing tariffs on precious metals, prompting American traders to start "stocking up" "Spot gold, which led to the rise of COMEX gold futures first, thus showing a large price difference with London gold. According to statistics, since the beginning of this year, the spot gold price in London has continued to be lower than the New York market by about $20 per ounce, and once exceeded $70 per ounce at the end of January.

Increasing price spreads stimulate cross-market spot arbitrage behavior, brick movers are in London Buy physical gold and ship it to New York, and sell equal amounts of gold futures to lock in the price difference. The background of Trump's tariff concerns has greatly stimulated market sentiment, with U.S. traders and investors continuing to buy gold futures out of safe-haven demand to hedge possible future costs. This strong buying offsets arbitrage Selling pressure even pushed COMEX futures prices to further rise, and ultimately technically pushed up the rise in gold prices in both places.

According to Wind data, COMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange) gold inventories have begun to increase rapidly since November 7, 2024, from the beginning of November 2024. About 17.2 million troy ounces, which increased to 34.6 million troy ounces by early February 2025, up more than 101% in three months. Correspondingly, London gold inventories have been significantly reduced.

The rise in gold prices and the sharp increase in COMEX gold inventory occurred simultaneously

Why doesn't Bitcoin follow gold?

Why -align: left;">Bitcoin is regarded as 'digital gold because it has developed rapidly over the past decade and has continued to break through milestones. It has similarities with gold in terms of scarcity, medium of exchange, inflation hedging and reserves of value. '.

But according to historical data, the value correlation between Bitcoin and gold is not obvious. When Bitcoin hits record highs in 2017 and 2021, gold Prices are in a temporary trough. 2024 Starting from the year, the two rose simultaneously due to factors such as the central bank's gold purchase wave and the approval of Bitcoin ETFs. It can be seen that the correlation between the two is driven by phased events, rather than the inevitable connection of intrinsic value logic. Gold and Bitcoin have also been affected in recent times. The uncertainty caused by Trump's tariffs, but it did have completely different trends, confirming this again.

This contradiction stems from the difference between the two attributes: gold's hedging function relies on its physical attributes and historical consensus, while Bitcoin digital gold narrative relies more on the continued rise for decades market sentiment and technical expectations.

However, Bitcoin is not without the risk-averse attributes of "digital gold". When some extreme events occur, such as Turkey and other currencies depreciate rapidly, as well as the Middle East conflict, Russia-Ukraine conflict, etc., BTC is very big The rise has increased a lot, which is the embodiment of this kind of safe-haven asset attribute.

The reason behind this is that under the expectation of severe inflation, ordinary citizens protect their own property. The common method is to choose a hard currency in gold, but it is possible to strictly control the economy, restrict or even confiscate gold, foreign currencies, etc. Only Bitcoin’s value and transmission networks do not rely on The financial institution, and there is no physical existence, ordinary people can take him anywhere without being regulated. Especially when facing a war scene, BTC is actually the best asset that is better than gold and strong currencies.

The correlation between Bitcoin and US stocks has surged. More often, Bitcoin is often classified as a 'risk asset', and its price trend shows a significant positive correlation with US stocks. Often regarded as a large-sized technology stock. This correlation reached its peak in 2021. The two hit historical highs simultaneously and then pulled back. They hit bottom and rebounded at the end of 2022. They fluctuated in 2023 and rose after a big one in 2024.The sharp rise and correction continued to break new highs, which showed particularly obvious consistency.

This also reflects the changes in the capital structure of the crypto market: the market before 2020 The main participants are mainly money, and their correlation with US stocks is not that high; then a large number of American institutions began to enter the market, which gave the currency circle a US stock paradigm. It can be simply considered that the money in the current currency circle is mainly It is money spilled out in the US stock market.

Although the current Bitcoin price is showing a weak trend and has not set a new record in sync with gold, the oscillation adjustment at this stage is by no means the end of its highlight moment. . Instead, it is in a critical period of transformation, and Bitcoin is gradually evolving from a high-risk speculative asset to an important part of global asset allocation. The continuous buying actions of institutional investors, Trump's crypto-friendly and the active promotion of Bitcoin reserves have jointly built an asset allocation option that Bitcoin cannot ignore as a sovereign wealth fund and more large institutional investors.

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