Global economies experienced significant uncertainty following the United States’ imposition of trade restrictions in mid-2025.
The uncertainty across the global market persisted into 2026, especially amid heightened geopolitical tensions.
As the notion of free trade weakened, investors, both individuals and central banks, turned to more established assets, especially Gold.
Is Gold a safer bet amid global market uncertainty?
Gold has traded within an ascending channel since November 2024, rising from $2,572 to an ATH of $5,595 before retracing.
As of this writing, Gold [XAU] traded at $5133, extending its month-long consolidation. Amid this strong price performance, Gold has spent over 1200 days without making a 20% drawdown.
With crypto recording a stellar performance, market analysts have differing opinions on what’s behind the rally.
According to Ray Dalio, Gold saw massive gains not only because it’s perceived as more established but also due to renewed demand.
“Central banks, individuals, and others are acquiring gold as an alternative because money, mechanistically, is seen as debt.”
While central banks can print fiat money, which tends to cause inflation, they can’t print Gold.
In addition, Gold saw massive demand from central banks and individual investors throughout 2022, driving a surge in accumulation.
While other assets saw reduced liquidity amid growing trade tensions, investors perceived Gold as a safer bet. Even more importantly, Dalio noted that Gold has acted as a diversifier, performing when others don’t.
He expressed,
“Gold also serves as a diversifier in a portfolio, performing well when other assets do not.”
Why Bitcoin lags behind
While Gold saw demand through a period of uncertainty, markets perceived Bitcoin [BTC] differently. Ray Dalio posited that Bitcoin failed to keep pace with Gold because of the nature of BTC-related transactions.
He said,
“Bitcoin doesn’t have privacy, and any transactions can be monitored and indirectly controlled. Central banks are not going to want to buy Bitcoin and be able to hold it.”
Since transactions involving BTC are traceable, central banks are discouraged from holding it. As such, central banks have shown no interest in holding Bitcoin, starving the king coin of potential sustained demand.
Additionally, Dalio added that,
“Bitcoin’s ownership tends to have a high correlation with tech stocks.”
This is evidenced by the recent performance of MSFT, AAPL, META, GOOG, the S&P 500, and NDQ, as they have all declined alongside BTC. During this period, only NVDA and TSLA have shown greater strength than Bitcoin.
Equally, BTC is small relative to Gold, and the market, especially traditional markets, perceives them differently.
When financially squeezed, investors are likely to liquidate their BTC holdings, which puts downward pressure on the asset.
Therefore, Dalio argues that, given prevailing conditions, investors view Gold as a better option than Bitcoin.
Can BTC flip the prevailing dynamics?
Bitcoin underperformed relative to metals through 2025, with both Silver and Gold holding above the market baseline.
On the other hand, BTC has declined alongside SPX, SPX’s total return, and TILT, indicating a high correlation with stocks.
The performance for these assets showed that investors have reduced exposure to assets perceived as risky. As such, capital flowed to metals for preservation while also realizing gains.
Currently, global markets are more tilted toward assets perceived as hedges against uncertain policies. Therefore, BTC remains at the mercy of global liquidity.
Under such conditions, BTC’s likelihood of rivaling Gold requires a shift in demand and a recovery in liquidity. Until markets feel safe enough to flow capital into SPX and other stocks, Gold is positioned to outperform BTC.
Final Summary
- Gold continued to rally amid renewed demand from central banks and individual investors, as per Ray Dalio
- Bitcoin failed to keep pace amid reduced liquidity and risk-off sentiment among investors.
