Bitcoin’s Golden Transformation: How Digital Gold is Mirroring the Real Thing

Forget ’store of value’ debates—Bitcoin’s price action now moves in eerie sync with gold bullion. Here’s why.

The Correlation Playbook

90-day correlation coefficients between BTC and gold hit 0.82 this week—higher than Bitcoin’s link to tech stocks. Macro traders are treating both as inflation hedges.

Halving Mechanics Meet ETF Flows

Post-halving supply shock collides with spot ETF demand, creating scarcity dynamics straight from gold’s playbook. Even Jamie Dimon can’t ignore the math.

The Ultimate Test

When the Fed pivots, we’ll see if crypto’s ’digital gold’ narrative holds—or if Wall Street just needed a shiny new toy to pump and dump.

Weaknesses of a centralized monetary system become apparent

One reason for this performance is certainly the emerging weakness of the system that originally inspired the creation of Bitcoin: centrally issued fiat currencies. The current tensions between the US president and the Federal Reserve chairman are dragging down the value of the US dollar – issued centrally by the Fed – in stark contrast to Bitcoin, which is not subject to any government or authority. Its issuance follows no inflationary dynamics; instead, it was designed with inherent scarcity. All of this makes it an attractive store of value in politically and economically unstable times. Another factor is Bitcoin’s divergent development from the stock market. To understand this, it helps to look back at past confrontations between Trump and the Federal Reserve.

Bitcoin’s role relative to stocks is changing

In 2018 and 2019, Trump repeatedly criticized Fed Chair Powell for not cutting interest rates quickly enough. While these confrontations briefly unsettled the markets, Bitcoin largely mirrored the movements of stocks. In August 2019, for example, Trump’s tariff threats and Powell’s critique caused slumps in both stocks and Bitcoin, while gold – as the only SAFE haven – rallied.

In 2025, however, the situation looks very different: Bitcoin not only has a significantly larger market capitalization, but is also much more widely accepted by institutional investors. The availability of exchange-traded Bitcoin products – both in the US and Europe – has made it much easier for traditional investors to access Bitcoin. As a result, the cryptocurrency is now far more accessible and credible as a safe haven than it was just a few years ago. Bitcoin is even benefiting from politically unstable situations, which have become even more extreme in Trump’s second term: his trade policies and rhetoric about removing the Fed chair are undermining confidence in the traditional US financial system. Bitcoin’s reaction clearly shows how far it has come.

How Bitcoin and gold behave

While market uncertainty is pushing gold to new highs, Bitcoin is increasingly seen as its digital counterpart. However, this growing correlation between Bitcoin and gold is still in its early stages. Whether it continues in the coming weeks is an important trend to watch. If trade tensions and monetary policy concerns persist, Bitcoin could continue to mirror gold’s movements. But if this pressure eases or the market environment shifts, Bitcoin’s behavior and its correlation with gold could change again.

For now, investors are clearly confident: on April 22, 2025 alone, US investors poured around one billion US dollars into US Bitcoin ETFs – and the strongest price rally of Bitcoin occurred during US market hours.