Can Bitcoin Match Gold's Historic Rally? Analysts See Key Test Ahead

If Bitcoin can keep pace with gold as it soars to an inflation-adjusted record high, then it could be poised for a big breakout, analysts told Decrypt.

The spot price for gold just exceeded an inflation-adjusted peak set more than 45 years ago. The price per ounce of gold in U.S. dollars has climbed 8% in September to a high of $3,683.14. That’s enough to edge it past the January 21, 1980 high of $850 per ounce. When those 1980 dollars are adjusted for inflation, they would have been worth $3,539.58 as of August 2025.

Bitcoin has climbed more than 6% over the same period, going from $107,634 to $114,408 at the time of writing, according to crypto price aggregator CoinGecko. The price of BTC currently sits about 8% under a peak above $124,000 set last month.

Analysts at QCP Capital, a digital asset trading firm in Singapore, told Decrypt they’re watching to see how gold and Bitcoin move in tandem to shape their Q4 forecast for BTC.

“We’re watching whether the gold-to-Bitcoin ratio approaches 0.041, a level that has historically coincided with periods where gold rallies while Bitcoin stabilizes,” they said. “With institutional treasury flows picking up, this zone is worth monitoring as a potential marker for shifting market dynamics.”

At the time of this writing, the gold-to-Bitcoin ratio sits at 0.032. Neither asset exists in a vacuum, but generally speaking, Bitcoin would need to fall or gold would need to rise even higher to nudge the ratio towards the sweet spot.

Users on Myriad, a prediction market owned by Decrypt parent company DASTAN, think there’s a slim chance Bitcoin will outperform gold this year. At the start of the day, the odds were as close as they’ve ever been with 54% of predictors saying gold will beat BTC. But since the precious metal set its new all-time high, the goldbugs have grown to 63%.

Bitcoin has been sitting around $114,000 for most of New York trading hours on Thursday after having peaked at $114,696 around midday. After a hotter-than-expected consumer price index report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning, BTC is now trading 0.7% higher than it was this time yesterday.

The QCP analysts added that they’re also keeping a close eye on the gold-to-S&P 500 ratio, which they see as a “barometer of risk-off versus risk-on sentiment across traditional assets,” as well as the BTC-to-ETH ratio to gauge rotation within digital assets.

“Together, these cross-asset ratios provide important context for how risk is being priced across both traditional and digital markets,” they said.