Why Traders Should Watch the Bitcoin to Gold Ratio

In brief

Bitcoin has recovered to near $115,000 following initial panic over Trump’s threatened 100% tariffs on China.
Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick notes that $2 billion exited gold ETFs last week, and suggests Bitcoin ETFs need to capture about half of that amount to confirm improving market sentiment.
Despite recent gains, gold continues to significantly outperform Bitcoin in 2025 with 54% year-to-date returns compared to Bitcoin’s 23%.

Bitcoin traders may be breathing a sigh of relief amid evidence that the U.S.-China tariff wounds are healing.

President Donald Trump’s threat to hike tariffs on China by 100% is widely credited with causing the Oct. 10 flash crash that wiped out an unprecedented $19 billion worth of open interest in crypto markets and tanked spot prices.

But Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick would still like to see ETF flows improve, he said in a note shared with Decrypt.

He noted that during the back half of last week, $2 billion worth of funds left gold ETFs.

“It would be confirmation of a more positive Bitcoin backdrop if we had half of that re-enter Bitcoin ETFs Mon-Wed this week,” Kendrick wrote. “Bitcoin ETF inflows have been lagging gold ETFs—some catch-up is due.”

Bitcoin was recently trading just below $115,000 early Monday morning after having gained 1.2% in the past day and 3.5% compared to this time last week, according to crypto price aggregator CoinGecko.

Now that investors are feeling optimistic about Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, the Bitcoin-gold ratio has improved. Although sentiment is getting better, there’s still some fear that trade talks could sour, Kendrick said.

“It now sits (just) above the level it was at before the late 10 October 100% tariff threat really impacted Bitcoin prices,” he wrote. “I will watch for this ratio to break back above 30 to signal an end to such fear.”

Although the ratio has improved, users on Myriad, a prediction market owned by Decrypt parent company Dastan, still think there’s a 65% chance gold will outperform Bitcoin in 2025. That has dropped by 4.5% in the past day, but is still far from flipping.

If Bitcoin manages to catch up, then it will have closed a very wide gap. As of this writing, gold has gained roughly 54% since the start of the year. And BTC has climbed 23% since the beginning of January.

The gains that Bitcoin has witnessed in the past week are, in part, because gold has backed off its recently set all-time high above $4,300 per troy ounce.