Gold Is Taking Lead from BTC. Is Bitcoin to Crash Again?
Bitcoin’s staggering price increase at the start of 2025 astonished both long-term holders and newcomers to the cryptocurrency space. However, after reaching the all-time high above $109,000, Bitcoin did not hold there long, nor did it go further upwards. Now, after crashing as low as under $80,000, BTC managed to rebound to the $85,000 level, but there is a risk of going much lower and landing at $50,000. Gold vs Bitcoin: which asset will prevail during turbulent times? The debate is heating up again as markets face uncertainty. Gold vs Bitcoin comparisons are particularly relevant now, given the latest dramatic moves in the crypto space.
Instead, reacting to the trade tariffs that the newly-elected US president Donald Trump began to impose on the US’s closest neighbors and China, BTC showed weakness and a high correlation to stocks as it first tumbled and then crashed following the leading stock market indexes, such as Nasdaq, S&P 500, and Dow Jones. Now that the situation in the global economy is worsening, investor sentiment is radically changing, and the largest cryptocurrency risks falling even lower than now since investors are flocking to good-old gold, which has been a safe haven asset for hundreds of years. That’s what Mike McGlone, a senior strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, believes.
Gold is outshining Bitcoin. Is another BTC crash looming?
McGlone has been one of the most vocal experts who have been warning about the risks Bitcoin may face on the way back to the all-time high and predicting a potential massive pullback. On April 17, Bloomberg’s strategist shared with the X community that gold’s appeal in the eyes of investors has been quickly growing as of late. He believes that gold may begin attracting much larger capital flows than it is enjoying right now.
In his tweet, McGlone said that gold may continue beating Bitcoin and stocks (the S&P 500). Both BTC and S&P now risk declining to the 200-week moving average. This means a long-term decline and, in concrete figures, $46,308 for BTC and 4,686 for S&P. This is likely to happen now that global markets are turning towards hard and stable assets, like gold, as the geopolitical and macroeconomic situations in the world are becoming more complex and are likely to linger.
In his recent tweets, McGlone also said that gold was currently outperforming Bitcoin on several major metrics and that is a negative trend for crypto, which may continue if inflation remains and central banks do not rush to introduce lower interest rates. At the start of April, gold was propelled to a new all-time high of $3,115 per ounce.
Last week, the chairman of the Fed Reserve, Jerome Powell, announced that the US central bank would refrain from a rate cut for now he continues to see strong signs of inflation dominance. President Trump criticized Powell, insisting that the US was getting rich on the current tariffs and that food prices had gone down significantly. In his social media post, Trump hinted that he would like to remove Powell from his position and perhaps put someone more agreeable in it instead.
Bitcoin briefly rebounds after Trump’s announcement
Ten days ago, when Trump first announced a new wave of tariffs against 180 countries with a glaring exception to Russia, tariffs against China surged as high as 145%, with Xi Jinping commanding to give a similar response. For other countries, Trump mercifully introduced a 90-day break before letting tariffs take effect. On that news, the primary cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, surged from $78,600 and reached the $85,500 level in just two days, showing an 8.7% rebound.
As the markets were expecting Jerome Powell to announce the Fed Reserve’s decision on April 16, Bitcoin went up 2%, spiking to $85,000. However, as Powell mentioned that the Fed was going to maintain the current interest rate, Bitcoin reacted by losing 2.66% in a single hour. A rebound followed, allowing BTC to get back to $85,000 once again. It has been trading in that range over the past few days, and by now BTC has tumbled to $84,550. Still, Bitcoin has always faced large corrections after sharp rallies since traders always wanted to take a significant portion of profits off the table.
Gold is likely to keep rising, unlike Bitcoin
Corrections of up to 30-40% were common after price peaks in 2021 and 2022. If such a massive correction were to take place now, it would push the leading cryptocurrency back to approximately the $55,000 level – the one talked about by Bloomberg’s strategist McGlone in his recent tweet. That would be even more true should macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions in the world take a bigger downturn than they have already.
And as geopolitical and macroeconomic tensions tighten, investors are switching on a risk-off mode and begin to sell all volatile assets, including stocks and Bitcoin, as they start going hard into gold, pushing its price to new peaks. The current conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and new concerns about the likelihood of Trump going back to the shelter of money printing support the bullish narrative of gold as a safety haven for the market right now.
