Bitcoin Set to Dethrone Gold by 2029, Top Macroeconomist Forecasts

Gold's millennia-long reign faces a digital coup.

Forget gradual shifts—this is a full-scale assault on the old guard of value storage. A prominent macroeconomist just laid out the timeline, and it's aggressive. Bitcoin isn't just knocking on gold's door; it's planning to walk right through it within the next few years.

The Digital Hard Asset Thesis

The argument hinges on a brutal simplicity gold can't match. Scarcity? Bitcoin's code-enforced limit beats geological guesswork every time. Portability? Try moving a billion in bullion across a border versus a seed phrase. Verifiability? A public ledger trumps a vault assay. For a generation raised on digital everything, the 'store of value' narrative is rapidly rerouting from Fort Knox to the blockchain.

Institutional Fuel on the Fire

This isn't just crypto-bro optimism. The real propulsion comes from the very institutions that once scoffed. Spot ETFs cracked the dam, turning Bitcoin into a tidy ticker symbol for wealth managers and pension funds—the same crowd that loves gold for its stability, ironically. Now, they're allocating not based on libertarian dreams, but cold portfolio math and diversification checkboxes. Wall Street's embrace often looks less like a handshake and more like a hostile takeover of the narrative.

The 2029 Horizon

The prediction pinpoints the end of the decade as the inflection point. By then, the cumulative weight of adoption cycles, regulatory clarity (or the profitable chaos that precedes it), and technological maturation could tip the scales. It’s a forecast that dares to quantify the vibe shift, giving the 'digital gold' metaphor an expiration date—after which Bitcoin just becomes the benchmark. Of course, traditional finance will call it a bubble right up until they start charging 2% fees to manage your BTC allocation.

The race is on. Gold has history, but Bitcoin has velocity. One represents safety in what's been; the other, a bet on what's coming. By 2029, we might just find out which is truly the harder asset.

A Contrarian Bet On Bitcoin’s Next Two To Three Years

Alden, speaking on the New Era Finance podcast this week, said that if she had to choose between the two assets for the period ahead, she’d pick Bitcoin.

Gold has climbed hard. Bitcoin has fallen far. She sees a pendulum between the two, and right now it has swung well in gold’s favor. That, she argued, sets up a potential reversal.

Gold reached a record high of around $5,608 per ounce in January. Bitcoin, by contrast, is sitting roughly 44% below its own peak of $126,000, reached last October.

The divergence in price performance mirrors the divergence in investor mood. Alden acknowledged gold’s run but stopped short of calling it a bubble.

Sentiment around it is “somewhat euphoric,” she said, while the mood around Bitcoin has turned what she described as unfairly negative.

She was careful not to overclaim. Both assets can rise at the same time. Both can fall. She does not treat the relationship between them as fixed or predictable with certainty. But pressed to make a call, she made one.

Gold’s Strength Could Be Bitcoin’s Opportunity

The backdrop to Alden’s comments is a broader debate about which asset deserves the title of reliable store of value.

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio has come down firmly on gold’s side. Speaking publicly this week, Dalio described gold as the most established form of money and pointed to its standing as the second-largest reserve asset held by central banks worldwide.

He raised concerns about Bitcoin’s limitations around privacy and its vulnerability to quantum computing advances — a technological threat that remains years away but is drawing increasing attention as construction begins on large-scale quantum facilities.

I think Bitcoin could reach $1M by ~2030 based on current conditions and progress.

Think long-term. pic.twitter.com/6MKqrjojAP

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) September 24, 2025

Dalio’s position and Alden’s are not entirely at odds. Neither dismissed either asset outright. The question is about which performs better over a defined window, not which survives long-term.

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