Bitcoin The drop to around $60,000 earlier this month looked familiar, not to gold bugs, but to tech investors, crypto asset manager Grayscale said in a Monday report.
As high-growth software stocks sold off, bitcoin fell at almost the same rate, reinforcing the idea that, for now, the world’s largest cryptocurrency is trading more like an emerging technology than a mature store of value, the report said.
The design of cryptocurrency, its capped supply, its independence from governments and its decentralized and resilient network give it the long-term qualities of a store of value. But at just 17 years old, bitcoin is still at the beginning of its monetary journey, especially when compared to the millennia-old history of gold, the company argued.
“Bitcoin can be considered a long-term store of value: the network will likely continue to operate well beyond our lifetimes and the asset could retain its value in real terms,” wrote analyst Zach Pandl.
Cryptocurrency’s claim to being digital gold is looking increasingly thin in recent months. Rather than serving as a safe haven, it fell sharply from its highs and moved in lockstep with risk assets as investors turned defensive.
At the same time, physical gold reached record levels, attracting capital inflows at the same time that bitcoin was seeing capital flow out. The split has weakened the idea that the cryptocurrency reliably holds its value during market stress, suggesting that scarcity alone has not yet allowed it to behave like gold when protection matters most.
Investing in Bitcoin today is fundamentally a bet on adoption, Pandl said. Until bitcoin becomes widely accepted as a global monetary asset, its price will likely remain sensitive to risk appetite, rising and falling with growth-oriented portfolios rather than serving as a hedge during market stress.
Recent market mechanisms support this point of view. The report highlights U.S.-led selling pressure, outflows from spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and strong deleveraging in crypto derivatives, signals that look more like a slowdown in growth than a crisis of confidence in the network itself.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen a series of sustained outflows, indicating a cooling of institutional appetite. In recent weeks, U.S.-listed funds have lost hundreds of millions of dollars as investors retreated in the face of market volatility and falling prices. The withdrawals lowered total assets under management and left many positions underwater, underscoring weaker demand for ETF-based bitcoin exposure even as inflows continue elsewhere in crypto.
Looking ahead, Grayscale sees the foundations of a recovery forming beyond near-term price action. Regulatory dynamics around stablecoins and tokenized assets, combined with continued innovation in blockchain infrastructure, could lead to the next phase of adoption. Platforms such as Ethereum and Solana, as well as middleware like Chainlink, are expected to benefit, the company said.
The long-term test of Bitcoin is still ongoing. Questions related to scaling, fees, and even quantum resistance loom large. But the report claims that if the cryptocurrency overcomes these obstacles, its volatility should decrease, correlations with stocks should fade, and its behavior could eventually resemble that of gold, just with a digital backbone.
Wall Street bank JPMorgan said the cryptocurrency’s lower volatility relative to gold could make it “more attractive” in the long term.
Learn more: JPMorgan says bitcoin’s lower volatility relative to gold could make it ‘more attractive’ in the long term
