Gold's climb to an inflation-adjusted record puts a spotlight on Bitcoin's ability to maintain momentum, QCP says.
In brief
- Gold hit an inflation-adjusted record high of $3,683/oz, surpassing a 45-year-old record.
- Bitcoin climbs 6% to $114,286 but analysts watch gold-to-Bitcoin ratio for breakout signals.
- Prediction markets now favor gold over Bitcoin through year-end, with 63% betting on precious metal.
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 Decryptthey’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.
