Proponents of bitcoin have been calling it “digital gold.” Both the cryptocurrency and the precious metal are impossible to value because they don't pay any interest or dividends. Bitcoin is digital, making it potentially vulnerable someday to hacking by quantum-computing algorithms, while gold needs to be stored in a vault. Bitcoin's supply is limited, while the potential demand for it is from everyone on Earth. The same can be said of gold’s supply and demand, though its rapidly rising price will incentivize more mining, potentially adding to available supply. There are lots of cryptocurrencies besides bitcoin, which tends to influence the prices of its cousins. Gold's cousins include other precious metals, which can influence gold's price.
Bitcoin holders have had a wild ride in recent years (chart). The price of bitcoin stayed mostly under $10,000 from 2017 to 2019. Then it took off in late 2020, rising close to $70,000 in 2021. It was back down just below $20,000 in late 2022. But then, with the help of Wall Street and the Trump administration, it soared to a record high of almost $125,000 in late 2025. Now it is back down to around $90,000.
Could the price of gold also increase about 10-fold from its level in March 2024, which is when it broke out decisively from a multi-year consolidation pattern to new highs above $2,000 per ounce (chart)? That’s when we turned bullish on gold. The price of silver broke out of its multi-year consolidation pattern shortly later, in early May 2024, when it was around $27 per ounce. The prices of gold and silver have increased 2.5x and 3.7x since their breakouts.
