The bull market in gold ratcheted into a higher gear on Wednesday, with the yellow metal soaring 6% to above $5,400 per ounce for the first time.
Silver and platinum posted even larger percentage gains, but gold, with a market capitalization somewhere in the $40 trillion area, was surely the standout asset.
A sizable chunk of gold’s gains came following comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at a press conference following the central bank’s universally expected decision to hold its benchmark fed funds rate range steady at 3.50%.3.75%.
Asked directly about the rapid ascent in gold and silver prices, Powell cautioned against over-interpreting the rally as a macro signal. “Don’t take too much message into [that] macroeconomically,” he said, adding that while some may argue the Fed is losing credibility, “it is simply not the case.”
“If you look at where inflation expectations are, our credibility is right where it needs to be,” Powell said. Gold bulls apparently thought otherwise.
Whither bitcoin?
Bitcoin bulls, meanwhile, continued to watch from the sidelines as real gold yet again vastly outperformed its digital counterpart. Prices traded in an excruciatingly tight range throughout the day, edging lower following the Fed decision and recently trading at $89,000, flat over the past 24 hours.
Prices across the rest of the major cryptos followed similar action.
U.S. stocks were also little changed on Wednesday as investors awaited earnings from the likes of Microsoft, Meta and Tesla.
Is bitcoin losing its digital gold edge?
Despite the macro tailwinds often touted as benefiting bitcoin as “digital gold” — including a weaker U.S. dollar and rising geopolitical risk — BTC has been struggling recently, while gold is now up more than 90% over the past 12 months.
The contrast casts a shadow over bitcoin’s supposed role as a macro hedge, especially as the assets it was designed to rival are outperforming, James Harris, CEO of yield platform Tesseract Group, argued.
“We’re clearly in a market regime where crypto is underperforming some of the very assets it was designed to supplant,” said Harris in a note. “Part of that outperformance is almost certainly a repricing of geopolitical and fiscal risk, but it also reflects gold clawing back some relative market share from bitcoin.”