Peter Schiff: Bitcoin Is Failing Because It’s Not Digital Gold

In Brief

• Peter Schiff argues that Bitcoin is not “digital gold” and can’t compete.
• Gold has reached new all-time highs in 2025 while Bitcoin struggles.
• Analysts blame shifting investor behavior for Bitcoin’s delayed recovery.

Shedrach Kongvong 2025-12-22

Gold rose to a new all-time high today, sparking response from the crypto community which wonders why Bitcoin has not followed suit. Peter Schiff says the reason is because Bitcoin isn’t digital gold and should not be expected to rally alongside gold.

Schiff in an X post said Bitcoin is simply weaker than other assets, so it doesn’t pump as much as gold or silver, and corrects deeper than those assets when they pullback. He has been criticizing Bitcoin for years, but this year’s criticism has been louder as Bitcoin’s price action has been rather discouraging.

I don’t believe Bitcoin has decoupled from other risk assets. It just doesn’t rally as much when they rise, and it declines much more when they fall. What should be obvious by now is that it’s not digital gold. If gold goes way up, there is no reason to expect Bitcoin to follow.

— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) December 22, 2025

Bitcoin Fails to Rally with Gold

There is a common saying that Bitcoin is digital gold, which Schiff is challenging. Gold has rallied significantly this year, reaching several price milestones. It first reached an all-time high of $4,000, and has been rising since. Today, it reached another new all-time high of over $4,400 while Bitcoin struggles to break out of a range it has been in for several weeks.

This marks a major deviation from the norm because Bitcoin usually rallies after gold, as money in gold eventually flows back into risk assets. While this has been true historically, the pattern hasn’t repeated itself in 2025, raising questions about what might be the reason for the break in the pattern.

Some commentators may have suggested that a decoupling of Bitcoin from other assets is responsible for the deviation, which Schiff says is not true. Another explanation which is more reasonable is that there is a change in investor behavior that is making the rally for Bitcoin and also the rest of the crypto market to delay, since everything needed for the market to pump has been in place.

So far, the coin has been in a range with the top at $94,000 for over a month. It recently broke below $90,000 and has been under since. Although it reclaimed this level today, it still lost it and is currently trading at $87,000.

Will Bitcoin Catch Up With Gold?

So far, gold has significantly outperformed Bitcoin in 2025, giving Schiff a chance to criticize the asset like never before. Will Bitcoin get even any time soon or will gold continue to outperform? No one knows at the moment.

However, Bitcoin still shows significant weakness which an expert says could take months to come out of. If this turns out to be true, Schiff will have a lot more time to promote gold while bastardizing crypto.