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Gold surges to doorstep of $5,000 as experts debate bitcoin's underperformance
"The [BTC] adoption announcements are not working anymore," said Jim Bianco, while Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas urged taking a longer-term view.
Jan 22, 2026, 9:16 p.m.
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What to know:
- Precious metals surged during U.S. afternoon trading Thursday, sending gold to a new record of $4,930 per ounce.
- Bitcoin continued to severely underperform, slumping back to just above $89,000.
- Bianco Research’s Jim Bianco suggested bitcoin's adoption narrative is losing power, while Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas said BTC is doing just fine on a longer time frame.
The precious metals rally shows no signs of letting up, while bitcoin and the broader crypto market remain stuck on the sidelines.
Gold rallied another 1.7% to hit $4,930 per ounce on Thursday, while silver added 3.7% to $96 per ounce. Bitcoin, meanwhile, slumped back to just above $89,000, roughly 30% below its all-time high from early October.
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Bitcoin and gold inhabit the same world, and bitcoin's poor price action in recent months had Bianco Research head Jim Bianco wondering whether BTC's adoption narrative is over.
"The adoption announcements are not working anymore," Bianco said in an X post. "Need a new theme and that’s not evident yet."
Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, replied, pointing out that bitcoin is now consolidating after running from below $16,000 at the depths of the 2022 crypto winter to its $126,000 peak in October.
"It went up like 300% in the 20 months prior," said Balchunas. "What do you want? 200% annual gains with no breaks?"
Likely contributing to bitcoin's poor performance, Balchunas said, were early investors cashing out to take profits after many years of holding, which he dubbed bitcoin's "silent IPO." One example of many, he continued, was an investor who sold over $9 billion in BTC in July after holding it for more than a decade.
Bianco argued that bitcoin is losing ground to pretty much everything over the 14 months since just after President Trump’s November 2024 election victory. Bitcoin is down 2.6%, he said, while silver is up 205%, gold 83%, the Nasdaq 24% and the S&P 500 17.6%.
"And while we wait for that new theme, everything else is racing ahead as BTC stays stuck in the mud."
The last word goes to Balchunas, who reminded that in November 2024, bitcoin had been up 122% year-over-year, solidly outperforming gold. Metals, he said, have been playing catch-up.
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