In 2025, gold won the “debasement trade” narrative over bitcoin, despite a 36% price correction for the latter. While bitcoin’s value fell by 7%, gold rose 65%. This divergence highlights that gold delivered one of its best years on record.
Before August, both assets had similar returns, with both rising around 30%. However, from then on, gold surged while bitcoin corrected sharply. The debasement trade narrative reinforced that gold outperformed bitcoin in 2025.
Interestingly, despite the price weakness, capital flows tell a different story. Bitcoin exchange-traded product (ETP) flows still outpaced gold ETP flows in 2025. According to Bitwise managing director Bradley Duke, ETF investor resilience is notable during this correction, with total bitcoin ETF assets under management declining less than 4%.
The most significant takeaway from the current correction in bitcoin is that ETF investors remained resilient, despite a 36% price drawdown. Data shows that U.S. ETFs held around 1.32 million BTC at the end of December and still hold roughly the same amount, suggesting that the majority of sell-offs didn’t come from ETF holders.
Additionally, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has increased its dominance during this correction, now holding just under 60% market share with roughly 780,000 BTC under management. The correction was not driven by ETF outflows, indicating a different factor at play.
In other news, GoPlus Intelligence’s Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls in 2025 and had a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February. The $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025.
Source: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/12/19/gold-wins-the-debasement-trade-in-2025-but-it-is-not-the-full-story