Gold Has Doubled Bitcoin's Returns: Why the Cryptocurrency Is Lagging
Bitcoin Still Lagging Behind Gold as an Asset to Protect Against Global Economic Crises 
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Bitcoin's year-to-date returns are lagging behind gold by almost half. Looking at the last four years, gold has also performed better than most assets, including stock indices.
Over the past two weeks, the price of the precious metal has risen by about 7%, allowing quotes to update their historical maximum of about $3.55 thousand per ounce, according to TradingView at 10:00 Moscow time. Since the beginning of the year, prices have risen by more than 34%, and since November 2021 they have risen by almost 95%.
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BTC/USD
111 460 +810 (0.73%) OKH Sep 03 12:59:25 1d 3d 1m 3m 1g 5l
Bitcoin (BTC) is up about 18% year-to-date and 62% from its November 2021 peak, the peak of the previous bull cycle before March 2024. Bitcoin hit a new high of around $124,500 on August 24, and as gold began to rally, BTC prices went into a correction, losing more than 10%.
“Bitcoin is sometimes viewed as a safe haven, but in reality it often moves in lockstep with tech stocks rather than gold. Because of this connection, Bitcoin and gold can exhibit opposing price trends during geopolitical crises,” Tiger Research senior analyst Jay Joe told Decrypt earlier this summer.
The thesis that Bitcoin is more similar to risky assets such as stocks can be confirmed by the correlation chart with gold, as well as the indices of the largest American companies NASDAQ 100 and SP 500.
Since mid-2024, Bitcoin quotes have been correlated with stock indices most of the time. While gold has mostly moved separately from other markets. A correlation value of 1 means the maximum coincidence of quote movements, and a value of minus 1 (-1) means that asset prices move in opposite directions.
The NASDAQ 100 and SP 500 indices are up about 40% since November 2021 and 10.5% and 9%, respectively, since the start of 2025.
The rise in Bitcoin's correlation with stock indices and the decline in gold's correlation with other markets in 2024 coincided with the active election campaign of Donald Trump, who subsequently took office as US President in January 2025.
The Protos publication noted that Trump's first term as head of the United States (from 2017 to 2021) turned out to be much more productive for the price of Bitcoin. BTC dynamics since the beginning of 2025 have been noticeably lower, despite the friendly policy towards cryptocurrencies and the signing of a decree on the creation of a state reserve of Bitcoin.
When Trump first became president in 2017, BTC was trading below $900. By September 2, 2017, it had risen to $4,600, an increase of more than 400%. In Trump’s first 225 days in office since the start of 2025, Bitcoin has risen by about 9%, to $111,000.
Source: cryptonews.net
