Bitcoin has fallen further than gold over the past year

Precious metals are having a bad month and the framing that followed, gold versus bitcoin, implies money moving from one to the other. We measured both rather than assuming the direction.

What the metals actually did

Gold trades at $4,032.90, down 6.6% over 30 days and 24.2% from the high of $5,318.40 it set on 29 January. Silver is at $54.03, down 16.1% in a month and 53.1% from its own high, though still up 11.4% over a year. Platinum is down 10.2% in a month and 45.0% from its high.

What bitcoin did

Now the other side of the comparison. Bitcoin trades at $81,601, down 5.6% over 30 days, down 25.9% over a year and 35.3% below the all-time high of $126,080 it reached on 6 October 2025.

Line those up and the premise of the comparison falls apart. Over twelve months gold is down 2.7% and bitcoin is down 25.9%. Whatever has been leaving the metals has not been arriving in bitcoin, which has been the worse of the two holdings for a year. A rotation needs a destination, and the numbers do not name one.

What held instead

The thing that actually held is the one nobody frames as an alternative. The S&P 500 sits at 7,663.43, up 13.7% over the year and only 2.0% below its own high. Gold and bitcoin are both well off their peaks; equities are not. If the past year had one safe place to sit, it was neither the metal nor the token but the index, and that is the comparison nobody writes as a headline.

“Crypto, semiconductors and AI cloud assets have pulled back to key support and look like a coiled spring if the fundamentals hold.”

— Tom Lee, Head of research, Fundstrat, 21 October 2026

Tom Lee of Fundstrat reads the pullback as the end stage of an AI selloff, with rates falling below 5% and crypto, semiconductors and AI cloud assets coiled at support. The support description is worth testing: bitcoin is 35.3% below its high, which is a long way from the level it last broke, and the demand side has thinned, with ETF inflows falling 96% in a single session this week.

Two things settle it, and both are dates rather than opinions. The Federal Reserve meets on 28 October, and the cycle window one analyst has drawn runs out in mid-December. Until then, gold and bitcoin are two assets falling for different reasons, and calling that a rotation requires one of them to be rising.

Informational material, not investment advice. All percentages were measured on 23 October 2026 from daily closes, and a one-year window is a choice rather than a verdict.