The price of gold reached $5,595 in January 2026 and is up 77% from last year, while Bitcoin is down 47% from $126,000 in October 2025 and is trading around $70,000.
JPMorgan argues that Bitcoin is now more attractive than gold because the volatility ratio between the two has fallen to a record low of 1.5, and BTC is at $70,000 below its estimated $87,000 cost of production.
Goldman Sachs raised its year-end gold target to $5,400 per ounce, pointing to gold’s record for never having lost more than 45% in a single drop since 2017, when Bitcoin fell more than 50%.
An analyst named NVIDIA just named his top 10 AI stocks in 2010. Get it for free here.
Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and gold are two of the most recognized stores of value in the world. Both were built on the promise of maintaining value when everything else falls, but it’s now moving in completely opposite directions. Gold is trading near $5,200 after rising 77 percent over the past year, from a high of $5,595 in January. On the other hand, Bitcoin reached $70,000 in October 2025 after falling 47% from its all-time high of $126,000.
Conventional belief is that gold is the main store of value and Bitcoin is not due to its high level of volatility. But JPMorgan recently argued the opposite, saying that Bitcoin’s volatility relative to gold has fallen to a record low and that BTC is now “more attractive than gold” as a long-term investment. The bank has set a long-term price target on Bitcoin of $266,000, while admitting that it won’t happen anytime soon.
READ: The analyst named NVIDIA in 2010 Just naming his top 10 AI stocks
So what Wall Street assets are really betting on for the next five years?
A year ago, the price of gold was around $2,900 per ounce. Since then, central banks have been buying at a pace not seen in decades, with China’s central bank adding gold for 15 consecutive months and countries like India and Poland building reserves alongside it. By late January, gold had already crossed $5,000 and reached an all-time high of $5,595 on January 29. When the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran on February 28, gold rose another 2% in a session, from around $5,100 to $5,300, as investors braced for a wartime asset.
Bitcoin should benefit from the same uncertainty. It has a fixed supply of 21 million coins — meaning no central bank can print more than that — and its supporters have long called it “digital gold.” But when the Iranian attack began on February 28, Bitcoin fell from $66,000 to $63,000 in one session while gold rose above $200. Bitcoin ETFs have now delivered nearly $3.8 billion in net outflows in 2026, with February alone marking the worst month since the product launched in January 2024. Gold-backed ETFs moved in the opposite direction, with the SPDR Gold Trust and iShares Gold Trust as new capital to combat physical demand for gold.
Gold is up 77% over the past 12 months while Bitcoin is down 47% from its October high and about 25% below where it started this year. The last time gold and bitcoin diverged sharply was in early 2020, and bitcoin fell more than 1,000% over the next two years—JPMorgan thinks a similar sequence may be forming now.
Ink Drop / Shutterstock.com ·Ink Drop / Shutterstock.com
JPMorgan’s quantitative strategist, Nicolas Panigiertzoglou, argued in a February note that Bitcoin is now more attractive than gold for the long term. His argument is that gold has actually become more volatile than Bitcoin. He also points out that 77% of gold’s rally came with wider and more frequent prices, while Bitcoin’s volatility fell — and that the ratio between the two fell to around 1.5, which is a record low.
If Bitcoin is now close to gold in terms of volatility, JPMorgan argues that it should also be close in terms of how much money is invested in it. Right now, nearly $8 trillion in private sector capital is sitting in gold through ETFs, bars and coins. For Bitcoin to match the investment level, JPMorgan predicts that the price will reach $266,000.
On top of that, BTC is trading below its estimated production cost of $87,000 – what it costs a miner on average to produce one coin – and whenever that happened in previous periods, the price eventually recovered. The bank’s own commodities team projects gold at $6,300 by the end of the year, up about 21% from $5,200. Compare that to the 280% that their $266,000 Bitcoin target is approaching $70,000 from current levels, and it’s clear which asset JPMorgan thinks has the most room to move.
As JPMorgan argues Bitcoin is the best bet, Goldman Sachs believes otherwise. The bank raised its year-end gold price to $5,400 an ounce in January, up from $5,200 today, which still means central banks will continue to buy. Goldman’s argument is that central banks are still buying gold at a pace not seen in decades and that gold doesn’t need Bitcoin-style volatility to produce strong returns.
Gold has also never lost more than 45% of its value in a single downturn, while Bitcoin has fallen more than 50% four times since 2017. For Goldman, stability is what keeps gold safe for the long term compared to BTC.
Bitcoin has more room to run from $5,200 than gold from $70,000, but you have to suffer a 40-50% decline to get there. Gold doesn’t ask you that. The thing is, gold has outperformed Bitcoin before in 2015 and again in the early 2020s, and both times Bitcoin has finally caught up and collapsed—and the same gap is forming now.
Moreso, Bitcoin now has a fundamental base that didn’t exist during previous withdrawals, with spot ETFs holding $100 billion in assets and strategies sitting on just 738,000 BTC. If the institutional floor is strong enough to drive a recovery after the macro stress subsides, buying Bitcoin at $70,000 with JPMorgan’s long-term target of $266,000 on the table could be one of the best entry points of this period. If not, gold at $5,200, JPMorgan estimates $6,300 to $8,000 and central banks are still raising was the right demand overall.
Wall Street is pouring billions into AI, but many investors are buying the wrong stocks. The analyst who first identified NVIDIA as a buyback in 2010 — before its 28,000% run — has identified just 10 new AI companies that he believes can deliver returns beyond that point. One dominates the $100 billion equipment market. Bill addresses the single biggest obstacle to maintaining AI data centers. The third segment is a net play in the optical network market that is quadrupling. Most investors haven’t heard of half of these names. Get a free list of all 10 stocks here.
