bitcoin is on track to end January underperforming gold for the sixth straight month, as investors ignore the largest cryptocurrency’s “digital gold” moniker and seek the safety of a metal that has historically been seen as a haven in times of economic and geopolitical turmoil.
The bitcoin-to-gold ratio, the amount of gold equivalent to 1 BTC, has fallen 23% this month and currently stands at 16.3. The six-month pattern closely resembles what happened in 2019, when the sequence began in August and ended in January of the following year. Back then, bitcoin outperformed gold for the next five months.
The first signs of a drawdown may be emerging. The ratio recovered 4% on Friday after falling to 15.5 on Thursday. That low coincided with a sharp sell-off in global markets, with risk assets falling aggressively.
Bitcoin is currently hovering around $82,000, up just over 2% since midnight UTC. In comparison, gold has fallen more than 8% and silver about 16%.
Since the peak in late 2024, the bitcoin-gold ratio has declined by approximately 60%, placing bitcoin in a technical bear market against gold for about 14 months. Even if the ratio has now bottomed, that does not automatically imply a strong upside for bitcoin. It may simply reflect that gold continues to weaken at a faster rate than bitcoin.
