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Key Takeaways
- Gold, silver, and U.S. tech stocks outperformed Bitcoin during parts of 2025.
- Peter Schiff’s “slow death” warning is based on observable performance divergence.
- Asset correlations shift over time and do not alone determine long-term outcomes.
- Whether Bitcoin’s lag reflects structural weakness or cyclical sequencing remains unresolved.
On December 23, 2025, economist and long-time Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff reignited debate over Bitcoin’s long-term role in global markets by warning that the largest cryptocurrency may be facing a “slow death” if it cannot rise alongside traditional risk assets such as technology stocks or safe-haven assets such as gold and silver.
Schiff’s comments came as Bitcoin traded in a sideways range near $87,000, while gold and silver reached fresh all-time highs, and major U.S. equity indices continued to post gains.
His argument touches on a core topic in financial economics and portfolio theory: how an asset’s correlation patterns with other asset classes behave under varying market conditions, especially during periods of monetary policy shifts and liquidity changes.
Empirical research shows that correlations between assets such as stocks, bonds, commodities, and digital assets are time-varying and influenced by factors like liquidity, risk sentiment, and macroeconomic regimes.
For example, recent analysis using dynamic correlation models found that Bitcoin’s linkages to equities strengthened after the spot Bitcoin ETF approval, while its relationship with gold remained close to zero over extended periods, highlighting that correlation is not fixed but evolves with market structure and investor behavior.
In 2025, those shifting relationships have been especially pronounced. Gold prices surged to fresh record levels above $4,400 per ounce, and silver climbed toward new highs near $70 per ounce amid expectations of looser U.S. monetary policy and geopolitical uncertainty. Precious metals experienced strong inflows and historic rallies, with silver outperforming gold on a percentage basis.
At the same time, major U.S. equity indices such as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite posted solid gains, reflecting continued investor appetite for technology and innovation exposures.
Bitcoin’s relative underperformance versus these assets during parts of 2025 is measurable and forms the empirical backdrop for Schiff’s critique.
However, empirical and market research underscores that temporary divergences or unstable correlations do not automatically indicate a structural breakdown in an asset’s valuation thesis.
Distinguishing what the data clearly shows from what it does not yet prove is central to assessing whether the observed divergences reflect a deeper shift in Bitcoin’s market role or simply a feature of dynamic market regimes.
What Peter Schiff Actually Said About Bitcoin’s “Slow Death”
Schiff’s core assertion, posted on X, was that:
If Bitcoin won’t go up when tech stocks rise, and it won’t go up when gold and silver rise, when will it go up? The answer is: it won’t.”
He followed this with the claim that “the Bitcoin trade is over” and that, in his view, the only logical direction for Bitcoin’s price was down unless a “slow death” was avoided by luck rather than fundamentals.
Schiff has also publicly stated that Bitcoin has declined significantly when priced in gold since its previous highs, suggesting this undermines the narrative of Bitcoin as “digital gold.”
2025 Performance: Gold and Silver’s Record Rally
A clear factual backdrop for Schiff’s comments is that both gold and silver have reached multiple record highs during 2025:
- Gold surpassed $4,400 per ounce in late December 2025, setting new all-time nominal highs amid expectations of U.S. Federal Reserve rate cuts and heightened demand for safe-haven assets.
- Silver also hit fresh record levels, trading above $70 per ounce as of late December. Its price gains have outpaced gold’s percentage increase (more than 140% year to date), driven in part by industrial demand and shifts in the gold-silver ratio.
- Broader commodity coverage shows gold up roughly 70% year-to-date in 2025, with silver more than doubling, a performance surge rare among major asset classes.
How Bitcoin’s 2025 Performance Compared With Gold, Silver and Tech Stocks
Compared with gold and silver’s strong gains in 2025, Bitcoin’s performance has been notably more subdued.
According to available market return data:
- Bitcoin’s price was down roughly 7.8% year-to-date as of mid-December, while silver had gained more than 129% and gold was up around 65% over the same period.
- In contrast, the Nasdaq Composite had risen about 17% and the S&P 500 about 14% year-to-date.
Over the course of the year, Bitcoin briefly traded above $126,000 before giving back most of those gains, and it was poised to finish the year lower than it began.
Throughout Q4 2025, Bitcoin also experienced extended consolidation and periodic pullbacks, leaving it significantly below the year’s earlier highs by late December. Some technical analysis reports describe recent Bitcoin price action as showing patterns that have historically correlated with market weakness, though such technical indicators are descriptive, not predictive.
Meanwhile, traditional equity markets showed solid returns in late 2025, with major indices finishing higher during holiday-shortened trading weeks. Both the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed at fresh records, reflecting sustained gains in technology and innovation-oriented stocks. On one recent session, the S&P 500 rose 0.6% and the Nasdaq 0.5%, alongside broader market strength.
This contextualizes Schiff’s observation that Bitcoin did not keep pace in this part of the market cycle, though it remains important to distinguish measurable performance differences from broader conclusions about future price direction or long-term asset viability.
Bitcoin’s Shifting Correlations With Gold and Tech Stocks
Schiff’s claim hinges on Bitcoin’s relationship with two different asset classes: tech stocks and precious metals.
Correlation metrics like these can be quantified, but they reflect specific time windows and do not, by themselves, determine long-term valuation or fundamental value.
Bull Theory Liquidity-Rotation Thesis: Gold First, Bitcoin Later
An alternative interpretation has been advanced by Bull Theory (@BullTheoryio), which argues that Bitcoin’s underperformance relative to gold in 2025 may reflect sequence, not failure.
According to Bull Theory, historical cycles show a recurring liquidity order during periods of improving monetary conditions:
- Gold moves first, responding early to easing liquidity and macro stress.
- Bitcoin follows later, often accelerating after gold’s momentum begins to slow.
Bull Theory highlights two historical examples:
- 2016–2017: Gold trended higher first, while Bitcoin initially lagged. Bitcoin’s rapid appreciation occurred later in the cycle.
- 2020–2021: During quantitative easing, gold reached new highs before Bitcoin surpassed its prior all-time high. Bitcoin’s strongest move came after gold’s momentum weakened.
Bull Theory argues that Bitcoin did not lead those cycles early, but instead followed gold once liquidity conditions were firmly established.
2025 Setup, According to Bull Theory
Bull Theory contends that current macro conditions resemble earlier periods preceding Bitcoin outperformance. Their cited factors include:
- The Federal Reserve implementing three rate cuts
- Ongoing U.S. Treasury T-bill purchases (approximately $40 billion per month, per their analysis)
- Global money supply at record highs
Based on this framework, Bull Theory interprets gold’s current strength, and what they describe as overbought conditions, as a possible precursor to a future rotation into Bitcoin. This is a theoretical interpretation, not a confirmed market outcome.
Bull Theory also notes the relative market sizes:
- Estimated Bitcoin market capitalization: $1.8 trillion
- Estimated gold market capitalization: $31 trillion
From this disparity, Bull Theory derives long-term price scenarios, such as Bitcoin reaching a fraction of gold’s market capitalization over multiple years. For now, these projections are explicitly hypothetical and depend on assumptions about adoption, liquidity, and investor behavior that cannot be verified today.
How This Relates to Peter Schiff’s “Slow Death” Claim
Schiff’s argument rests on the assertion that Bitcoin’s failure to rise alongside either gold or tech stocks undermines its core narratives.
However, Bull Theory’s analysis demonstrates that lagging gold has occurred before, even in cycles that later saw substantial Bitcoin appreciation. This does not disprove Schiff’s thesis, but it does show that correlation behavior alone is insufficient to establish that Bitcoin is entering a terminal decline.
December 26 Options Expiry and Bitcoin’s Near-Term Price Dynamics
As 2025 draws to a close, Bitcoin’s price action has been shaped not only by macro and cross-asset performance but also by derivatives market mechanics, especially a record-setting Bitcoin options expiry scheduled for December 26, 2025.
Notably, more than $23 billion worth of Bitcoin options contracts are set to expire on Friday, December 26, making it one of the largest expiry events in Bitcoin’s history.
These contracts include a large concentration of both call and put positions with strike prices clustered around key technical levels such as $85,000, $90,000 and $100,000 — price bands that have acted as short-term support and resistance throughout December.
Options expiry is a regular feature of derivatives markets, but when notional values reach record scales, it can produce heightened volatility and “gamma” effects, a type of liquidity pressure created when market makers dynamically hedge option exposure
amma pinning may help explain why Bitcoin traded in a relatively narrow range between roughly $85,000 and $90,000 late in the year: dealers short volatility have been forced to buy on dips and sell on rallies around concentrated strikes, mechanically suppressing price movement.
Market observers note that the size of this expiry, often cited near $23.6 billion to $24 billion, surpasses prior annual expiries and is more than double the scale seen in earlier years (e.g., around $11 billion in 2023, roughly $19.8 billion in 2024).
With open interest so large and liquidity relatively thin during the holiday period, even modest hedging flows can create outsized price swings in either direction.
In addition to options, futures and perpetual swap markets, derivatives instruments that allow traders to bet on price without a fixed delivery date, have shown elevated open interest and funding rates, signaling continuing leverage in the market even as spot price moves remained muted.
Perpetual futures contracts, a common instrument in crypto markets that settle periodically based on funding rates rather than at a fixed expiry date, have attracted attention as leveraged long positions have grown in the lead-up to year-end.
What this means for price in the near term is a matter of short-term market mechanics rather than long-term fundamentals:
- Some analysts see the expiry as a potential catalyst for volatility, where the unwinding of hedges could allow price to break out of the narrow $85,000–$90,000 range once concentrated options exposure decays.
- Others highlight that dealer gamma and delta hedging ahead of expiry can act as a temporary suppressor of price movements, pinning Bitcoin within a band until the event passes.
- The expiry itself does not forecast direction, rather, it removes a large derivative-driven constraint on price, after which spot market demand, liquidity flows, and macro signals typically resume greater influence.
Importantly, options and futures events like this are short-term structural factors. While they can amplify volatility around specific dates, they do not by themselves determine long-term price trends or fundamental valuations, which remain tied to broader investor sentiment, regulatory developments, and macroeconomic conditions.
Connecting this expiry-driven market context to Schiff’s remarks illustrates why price may have appeared “stuck” even as gold, silver, and tech stocks were rising, underscoring that temporary market structure effects should be distinguished from long-term fundamental analysis.
Bitcoin’s 2025 Underperformance: What the Data Shows — and What It Doesn’t
Schiff’s warning reflects a broader narrative, that Bitcoin’s recent price action has not kept pace with certain other asset classes in 2025. That observation is grounded in measurable performance differences.
However, interpreting those differences as evidence of a structural demise for Bitcoin goes beyond the data and enters the realm of opinion and forecasting. Correlations and relative performance at a single point in time do not conclusively determine long-term outcomes.
In markets, context and multiple data points matter. Facts show divergence; interpretations differ. Careful analysis should distinguish between what has happened and what might happen next, a distinction that remains central to the ongoing debate over Bitcoin’s role in diversified portfolios.
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FAQs
Did Bitcoin really underperform other major assets in 2025?
Yes, for parts of 2025, Bitcoin underperformed both precious metals and U.S. equity indices. Gold and silver reached record highs, while major stock indices such as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite posted positive returns. Bitcoin, by contrast, traded below its earlier highs and experienced extended consolidation.
Does Bitcoin’s changing correlation with gold and tech stocks signal failure?
Not necessarily. Correlations between assets are time-varying and depend on market regimes, liquidity conditions, and investor behavior. A negative or weak correlation over a specific period does not, by itself, determine an asset’s long-term value or viability.
What is the Bull Theory explanation for Bitcoin’s lag?
Bull Theory argues that Bitcoin historically lags gold during early stages of liquidity-driven cycles. In this framework, gold tends to move first when liquidity improves, while Bitcoin accelerates later. This is an interpretive model based on historical patterns, not a guaranteed forecast.
Disclaimer:
The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be, nor should it be construed as, financial advice. We do not make any warranties regarding the completeness, reliability, or accuracy of this information. All investments involve risk, and past performance does not guarantee future results. We recommend consulting a financial advisor before making any investment decisions.