The recent market turmoil might have given gold the bragging rights of being the “store of value” while “digital gold” struggles, at least for now.
Gold futures for April delivery have surpassed $3,000 an ounce for the first time ever, marking a historic milestone for the precious metal. Spot gold is consolidating just below $3,000 an ounce, up 15% year-to-date, while its digital counterpart, bitcoin (BTC), is struggling—down 12% this year and hovering around $80,000.
This divergence underscores gold’s role as the ultimate safe-haven asset in the current economic environment.
Since mid-February, U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs have experienced only three days of inflows, causing total net inflows to decline from $40 billion to approximately $35 billion, according to Eric Balchunas, a senior Bloomberg ETF analyst.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 has entered correction territory, falling over 10% and struggling to reclaim its 200-day moving average amid escalating geopolitical tensions. Further tariffs imposed by former President Trump and stalled ceasefire negotiations between President Putin and Ukraine have exacerbated global uncertainty.
Andre Dragosch, Head of Research at Bitwise in Europe, attributes gold’s record highs and the U.S. equity sell-off to rising short- and medium-term inflation expectations, coupled with declining consumer confidence.
“The recent rally in gold to new all-time highs likely reflects both increasing inflation expectations and a broader flight to safety,” Dragosch explains. “In fact, both short- and medium-term inflation expectations in the University of Michigan consumer survey have risen to multi-decade highs. U.S. consumers are growing increasingly concerned about inflation, likely due to the Trump administration’s new tariff policies.”
He further notes, “Meanwhile, U.S. equities have been selling off due to mounting economic uncertainty driven by these trade policies, as well as rising recession risks amid a slowdown in the labor market. Both factors have significantly buoyed the price of gold.”
Token Talk
By Oliver Knight
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- In an otherwise muted day for altcoins, HyperLiquid’s native token is leading the pack, having risen by 9.5% in the past 24 hours. The boost comes as the decentralized exchange topped $1 trillion in cumulative volume this month, with $4.8 billion worth of derivatives in the past day alone.
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- The same cannot be said for other DeFi tokens like AAVE, LIDO and PYTH, which have all been between 19% and 21% down over the past seven days after failing to recover from a market-wide plunge over the weekend.
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- One trader profited a cool $108k after buying Base memecoin doginme on Thursday only for Coinbase to list the token on Friday, spurring a 150% rally.
Derivatives Positioning
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- Earlier this morning, the price of Bitcoin bounced to $82,895 from levels below $80,000, hitting a cluster of short liquidations leverage worth $52.1mn, according to CoinGlass. The next significant liquidations leverage level is $79,760, holding liquidations worth $41.9mn.
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- Among the assets with over $100mn in open interest, Chainlink saw the highest 1D percentage gain, rising 35.8% to $409.5mn. PNUT, Near Protocol, Stellar and Trump complete the top five, with their open interest rising 19.7%, 15.8%, 14.8% and 11.8% on the day. Layer-1 Network Sei (SEI) saw the highest decline in open interest, falling 17.2% to $101mn.
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- In the bitcoin options market on Deribit, call options at a $100,000 strike price hold the highest open interest, with a notional value of $1.5 billion, followed by $1.35 billion in open interest at the $120,000 strike. However, the Put-to-Call ratio, currently at 0.52, signals significant put-side interest, with the largest put contracts holding $800 million and $700 million in open interest at strike prices of $80,000 and $75,000, respectively.
Market Movements:
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- BTC is up 2.93% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $82,739.17 (24hrs: -0.57%)
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- ETH is up 2.38% at $1,890.23 (24hrs: -0.55%)
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- CoinDesk 20 is up 3.36% at 2,592.81 (24hrs: -0.14%)
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- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 17 bps at 2.99%
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- BTC funding rate is at 0.0025% (2.79% annualized) on Binance
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- DXY is unchanged at 103.88
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- Gold is up 0.71% at $3,000.95/oz
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- Silver is up 0.83% at $33.97/oz
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- Nikkei 225 closed +0.72% at 37,053.10
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- Hang Seng closed +2.12% at 23,959.98
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- FTSE is up 0.49% at 8,584.53
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- Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.69% at 5,365.00
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- DJIA closed on Thursday -1.3% at 40,813.57
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- S&P 500 closed -1.39% at 5,521.52
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- Nasdaq closed -1.96% at 17,303.01
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- S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.9% at 24,203.23
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- S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.73% at 2,343.21
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- U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 2bps at 4.3%
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- E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.67% at 5,564.75
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- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.9% at 19,421.50
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- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.42% at 41,036.00
Bitcoin Stats:
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- BTC Dominance: 61.82 (0.26%)
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- Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02288 (-0.48%)
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- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 825 EH/s
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- Hashprice (spot): $47.3
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- Total Fees: 5.55 BTC / $456,716
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- CME Futures Open Interest: 144,785 BTC
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- BTC priced in gold: 27.7 oz
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- BTC vs gold market cap: 7.86%
