It’s no secret that Bitcoin is currently failing in its many rhetoric, including the claim that it can serve as a hedge against inflation or a safe haven asset amid uncertainty.
While gold has soared more than 80% during this period of high inflation, geopolitical skirmishes and interest rate uncertainty, bitcoin has fallen 14% year over year.
In theory, assets that protect against inflation should increase when the value of the currency falls. For gold and the rest of the precious metal complex, this theory worked. For digital gold, not so much.
This divergence has raised new questions: Why would anyone buy bitcoin now when precious metals and stocks offer better returns?
CoinDesk interviewed a group of longtime Bitcoin bulls, and here’s how they defend buying Bitcoin:
Comfort in the known (Jessy Gilger, senior advisor at Gannett Wealth Advisors, a bitcoin-native wealth management firm)
“The current rise in gold is a temporary political distraction. In times of fear, institutions tend to fall back on what they know because they often lack the foresight to embrace a true phase change in technology. We are currently seeing a historic standard deviation shift in the GLD/BTC power law ratio, but hard assets are a long game.
Although gold has a legacy, Bitcoin has proven to be technically stable at a protocol level for over fifteen years. Expect a regression to the mean where bitcoin will eventually catch up, as the market realizes that digital scarcity is more efficient than physical inheritance.
Transfer of ownership (Mark Connors, investment director at Risk Dimensions)
“Zoomed out is 2025. The signal is provided if you zoom in. » If you “zoom in”, Bitcoin does not fail the macro test compared to gold. It is currently constrained by three internal forces that escape most observers.
“It’s not a demand issue, it’s a supply distribution event. Institutional ETF inflows are massive, but they’re not driving up prices; they’re just absorbing a decade’s worth of supply that was abandoned by early adopters. We’re seeing a transfer of ownership, not a lack of interest.”
Tech Stock Problem (Charlie Morris, CIO ByteTree)
“The curious thing is that the gold bugs and the bitcoin maxes use the same narratives: limited supply, money printing, inflation, war, chaos, etc. Yet I believe that gold is the reserve asset for the real world and bitcoin for the digital world. Today’s problems are in the real world. Bitcoin is not failing, it is simply retreating in step with Internet stocks, with which it has always been closely linked since its inception.”
A rotation delay coming? (Peter Lane, CEO of Jacobi Asset Management)
“The ‘digital gold’ narrative didn’t really pan out when tested. Bitcoin didn’t perform as a true hedge against inflation or a safe haven during periods of geopolitical stress and monetary uncertainty. Instead, gold and silver were the big winners in 2025.
There has long been a mass market comfort with precious metals that Bitcoin simply has not yet earned. I still think we will eventually see a delayed rotation into BTC, but for now, investors are looking to what they know and trust.
Need another demand driver (Anthony Pompliano, President and CEO of ProCap Financial)
“Bitcoin has largely served as a hedge against inflation over the past five years, but with deflation likely on the horizon, Bitcoin will need to find other demand to continue driving the asset higher. I remain optimistic about Bitcoin’s future prospects, but recognize that the macro environment and participants in the Bitcoin market are evolving rapidly.”
A permanent solution to inflation? (David Parkinson – CEO Musquet, BtC Lightning)
The idea that “digital gold has failed” is premature noise. Bitcoin’s fixed supply and network growth continues to generate outsized returns relative to inflation and even gold over a multi-year horizon. Bitcoin now appears to be the native monetary asset of the Internet. This is not a “hedge” against inflation, but a permanent solution. Gold and other traditional inflation-hedging assets are enjoying their moment, and ultimately Bitcoin outlives and outperforms them all.
The time for Bitcoin is coming (Andre Dragosch – Bitwise)
“I think the precious metals rally is ultimately down to something you might call ‘muscle memory’ – in times of uncertainty, investors resort first to assets they know well – and that seems to be gold and silver at the moment.
To be fair, Bitcoin is still perceived as a risky asset, even though it has better store of value characteristics than gold. But I’m pretty confident that bitcoin will begin to attract supply once traditional hard assets are inflated to obscene levels and capital begins to flow into more attractive valued assets like bitcoin.
Based on a relative Mayer multiple between bitcoin and gold, bitcoin is already at FTX explosion levels last seen in 2022 relative to gold. There is also a massive undervaluation of bitcoin relative to both the 2026 macroeconomic environment and the global money supply level, which is most likely to resolve upwards over the coming months.
Read more: Bitcoin in deep bear market against gold, history suggests decline could persist
