Peter Schiff Declares Bitcoin in Long-Term Bear Market Against Gold — Here’s Why He’s Wrong
Gold bug Peter Schiff just fired another shot across Bitcoin's bow. He claims the digital asset is locked in a long-term bear market against the ancient metal. But is this just another case of old-guard finance missing the forest for the trees?
The Flawed Comparison
Comparing Bitcoin to gold is like comparing the internet to a library. One is a static store of value; the other is a programmable, borderless network with a deflationary monetary policy hard-coded into its core. Schiff's analysis often ignores the network effect and adoption curve driving Bitcoin's value proposition far beyond mere 'digital gold.'
Narrative vs. Network
Schiff's bearish call relies on a short-term price ratio, overlooking Bitcoin's fundamental trajectory. Institutional adoption continues to accelerate, regulatory frameworks are solidifying, and the asset's correlation with traditional risk-off assets like gold is weakening. The narrative of a bear market against gold fails to account for Bitcoin's unique value drivers—scarcity, security, and sovereignty.
While gold sits in vaults, Bitcoin moves at the speed of light, settling finality without asking for permission. Schiff's warning serves as a useful reminder for investors to understand the assets they hold—but mistaking a temporary chart pattern for a long-term trend is a classic Wall Street parlor trick. After all, traditional finance has a long history of dismissing disruptive technology right up until the moment it becomes indispensable.
Digital gold vs physical gold
The debate of Bitcoin versus gold has emerged as a topic of hot debate once again as crypto prices are in freefall while gold surges in value. The gap in performance between gold and BTC was very pronounced in 2025, with gold prices appreciating by 65% while BTC price lost 6% of its value. This scenario has given quite a bit of ammunition to someone like Peter Schiff, who has long criticized cryptocurrencies while being a strong advocate of gold.
However, the question of whether BTC or gold is a better investment is not an easy question to answer and comes with a lot of nuances. One must consider various factors like personal risk preference, historical returns, and price volatility to get a better picture of the issue.
Between 2011 and 2025, Bitcoin had a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 90% compared to roughly 6% for gold, with an individual standard deviation of around 150%, roughly ten times higher than gold. This shows that while Bitcoin has been a much better-performing asset since 2011, it has also shown a great deal more price volatility.
While this has decreased over the years as Bitcoin matures, gold still proves to be a more stable asset that provides relatively predictable and consistent returns. Gold is also tangible, while Bitcoin is not, although this does not seem to be as much of a decisive issue anymore for potential investors of BTC as it once was due to the growing legitimization of the asset.
Why Gold is currently outperforming BTC
Ark Investment Management published a report in January 2026 examining why gold has been outperforming Bitcoin recently. They stated that the long-term ascent of gold prices is largely due to its supply being outpaced by global wealth creation. This is contrary to the idea that gold’s strong performance in 2025 is due to fears of inflation. Gold supply has also been increasing at a modest pace, which creates a supply-demand imbalance, ushering in higher prices.
Conversely, Bitcoin has a fixed supply schedule that does not respond to price increases. While Ark’s Cathie Wood claims that this makes the asset more structurally scarce, it also means that its price performance is much more reliant on investor demand rather than supply-side constraints.
Additionally, current global economic uncertainty has created a risk-off environment, which historically drives investors away from risk assets like cryptocurrency and into historically SAFE assets like gold. The macro environment right now is simply more favorable to precious metals like gold, and until risk appetite shifts, this means it will continue to outperform BTC.
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