Bitwise CEO Reveals Bitcoin’s Looming Challenge: What’s Next for Crypto in 2025?

Bitcoin's bull run faces a critical inflection point—and the clock is ticking.

### The Regulatory Gauntlet Ahead

While institutions keep stacking sats, Bitwise’s CEO spots storm clouds forming. The next hurdle? A regulatory squeeze that could shake weak hands out of the market. No surprise—Wall Street’s latecomers will probably lobby for rules that ‘protect investors’ (read: protect their own positions).

### Liquidity vs. Legacy Finance

Expect exchange-traded products to become battlegrounds as traditional finance tries to tame crypto’s volatility. The irony? These are the same players who called Bitcoin ‘worthless’ at $3K.

### The Cynic’s Corner

Funny how ‘risk management’ only matters to banks after they’ve missed the rally. Buckle up—the real volatility starts when suits realize they’re still underallocated.

Source: Hunter Horsley/X

Bitcoin ETF inflows outpace gold

In the meantime, BTC has enjoyed relative demand from institutional investors in Q2 compared to gold. According to ETF inflows across the two hedge assets, in Q2, gold ETF demand dropped 40% from $30B to $15B. 

On the contrary, BTC ETFs recovered from $3.3B outflows to nearly $10B inflows as of press time. 

Source: Bold Report 

Horsley added that BTC won’t compete with gold, as both attract investors’ attention in the future because they are ‘apolitical stores of value (SoV).’ But T-bills and bonds will be the new BTC rivals. 

“Rather, I think Bitcoin’s competition is going to end up being U.S. Treasuries and other governments’ bonds (eg, UK gilts): the ultimate *political* SOVs.”

On investors’ returns, however, BTC had a head start from April and outperformed gold by 34%.

However, gold has outpaced BTC by 10% since mid-May, per the BTC/gold ratio, an indicator tracking BTC’s relative price performance against gold. 

Source: BTC/Gold ratio, Trading View 

This week alone, the ratio only surged 1.5%, suggesting BTC held relatively better against gold during Middle East tensions. 

In fact, on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, BTC has surged 58%, offering investor returns higher than the S&P 500 Index’s 11% or gold’s 46%. If the ratio extends its rally to 40, then BTC WOULD offer better returns than gold.