Bitwise: Bitcoin Decouples from US Stocks, Officially Enters Digital Gold Pricing Cycle

The correlation between Bitcoin and gold has reached a new high since 2020.

Written by: André Dragosch, Head of European Research at Bitwise

Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News

One of the longest-standing controversies surrounding Bitcoin is whether it truly qualifies as "digital gold." Proponents of this view argue from a theoretical standpoint that Bitcoin, like gold, possesses scarcity, interchangeability, and divisibility, and can be held without third-party custody.

Opponents provide more pragmatic arguments: Bitcoin's historical price performance is starkly different from that of gold. They point out that Bitcoin has experienced multiple deep corrections of 50%-80%, questioning this narrative; moreover, Bitcoin has existed for a much shorter time than gold and lacks the same level of acceptance as a store of value.

However, a key change in the market recently may help resolve this divide. It has been proven that when macro risks truly arise, Bitcoin can indeed play the role of "digital gold," and we are currently witnessing the moment when this value begins to materialize.

Bitcoin and Gold Correlation Reaches Six-Year High

August saw significant macro events in the market. The yields on 10-year and 30-year US Treasury bonds rose, and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent intervened in the market by increasing long-term bond purchases. This intervention signals that we may be entering a new era of financial repression and yield curve control.

Following the intervention, Bitcoin experienced its strongest weekly gain since March 2024, rising by 22.4%. However, most investors overlooked a detail: during this rally, Bitcoin's movements were highly synchronized with those of gold.

Specifically, gold saw a weekly increase of about 5%, while the US stock market declined. A deeper analysis of the data reveals a highly valuable conclusion: the three-month rolling correlation coefficient between Bitcoin and gold has surged to a near six-year peak.

90-day rolling correlation between Bitcoin and gold, data source: Bitwise Asset Management, Bloomberg Terminal; statistical period: 2015-04-13 to 2026-08-31; gold uses spot prices.

The last time the correlation between the two reached this level was during the global rounds of fiscal and monetary easing policies implemented during the pandemic in 2020. In other words, the two periods when government interventions in the macro market peaked coincided with the highest correlations between Bitcoin and gold.

At the same time, the correlation between Bitcoin and US stocks has fallen to a one-year low, indicating a decoupling between hard assets and the stock market. The narrative that "Bitcoin is just a leveraged tech growth stock" may no longer hold true.

The correlation between Bitcoin and the US stock market has declined from its previous highs.

90-day rolling correlation of Bitcoin against the Nasdaq 100 index, data source: Bitwise Asset Management, Bloomberg Terminal; statistical period: 2015-04-13 to 2026-08-31; benchmark uses the Nasdaq 100 total return index.

Additionally, Bitcoin shows a significant negative correlation with the US Dollar Index (DXY). When the dollar weakens, Bitcoin (and gold) often experience favorable market conditions.

Bitcoin maintains a negative correlation with the dollar.

90-day rolling correlation of Bitcoin against the US Dollar Index, data source: Bitwise Asset Management, Bloomberg Terminal; statistical period: 2015-04-13 to 2026-08-31; the dollar uses the US Dollar Index DXY.

Bitcoin as a Hedge Against Currency Depreciation

The data conveys a clear signal. First, Bitcoin is not equivalent to gold. Gold is a mature store of value that has been established over thousands of years; Bitcoin, having existed for less than twenty years, is a completely new category of innovation. When macro risks are no longer the market's focus, the price movements of Bitcoin and gold will still show significant divergence.

However, once macro tensions rise and macro variables impose strong constraints, the boundary between investors' choices of gold and Bitcoin as hedges against currency depreciation is becoming increasingly blurred. In such special market conditions, Bitcoin begins to behave like an elastic, amplified version of gold.

Gold boasts a massive market of approximately $30 trillion, primarily held by central banks, sovereign institutions, and large asset allocation firms. This pool of capital far exceeds the venture capital and crypto-native capital that dominated Bitcoin's pricing in its early development. If Bitcoin officially enters this category of store of value assets, its valuation logic will align with a much larger market benchmark.

The correlation data provides a very clear conclusion: investors are no longer torn between choosing gold or Bitcoin to hedge against currency depreciation, but rather are synchronously allocating both asset classes to hedge risks. Over the past fifteen years, Bitcoin has been priced as a risk asset; if the strong correlation trend with gold can continue, its value narrative may be completely rewritten in the next fifteen years.

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