Gold vs Bitcoin: Which Is the Better Store of Value?

Bitcoin was four times as volatile as Gold. Its worst fall was 83.4%, against 26.4% for Gold. Both are measured over the same period, 2 January 2014 to 16 October 2026, with Gold measured as GLD (the gold ETF).

Yet the share of twelve-month stretches that lost money was almost the same: 31.0% for Gold, 32.6% for Bitcoin. Both figures come from our own price history. What separates the two is the size of the loss and how long it stays deep.

The window is 2 January 2014 to 16 October 2026. It starts there because that is the first day on which both have a price, so Bitcoin sets the window and Gold is measured over it.

For Gold we use GLD (the SPDR Gold Shares ETF, an exchange-traded fund that holds gold bars), because it has a daily closing price for the whole window. It tracks gold less its fee. Where we say Gold, we mean that fund.

Volatility means how widely a price swings from day to day, scaled to a year.

One measurement choice matters. Gold trades on exchange sessions while Bitcoin trades every day of the year.

Scaling to a year uses the number of trading periods in one, so applying 252 days to an asset that trades 365 understates it badly. We scale each asset on its own calendar. Using the wrong day count would cut Bitcoin's figure by more than 11 points.

Over the full window Gold's annualised volatility was 16.2% and Bitcoin's 67.9%, a ratio of 4.2 times.

Bitcoin was the more volatile in every year from 2016 onward. The gap was widest in 2017, when Bitcoin's 92.5% ran against Gold's 9.9%. It was narrowest in 2026 to date, at 1.5 times.

The chart starts in 2016 because Bitcoin's 2014 and 2015 prices come from thin early trading, so we do not report a yearly figure for those two. Those days still sit inside the full-window and holding-period figures.

That narrowing comes from both ends. Bitcoin's quietest year was 2025 at 41.8%. Gold's noisiest was 2026 to date at 30.7%, the highest of any year in the window, against a previous high of 19.9% in 2025.

Depth is only half of a fall. The other half is how long it takes to get back.

Bitcoin's worst fall in the window was 83.4%, from 17 December 2017 to 16 December 2018. It regained its old peak on 30 November 2020, 715 days after the bottom. Counted from the peak, the round trip took 2.95 years.

Gold's worst fall in the window was 26.4%, from 29 January 2026 to 16 July 2026. It has not recovered. On 16 October 2026 it sat 23.0% below that peak.

Bitcoin had not recovered either. On the same day it sat 34.7% below its October 2025 peak, part of a fall of 53.1% that began a year earlier.

The chart carries a third bar. That is Gold's fall from its 2011 peak, which starts before this window and is covered further down. It is there for scale.

A fall from a previous high is what we mean by a drawdown. The running peak is the highest close reached up to that day.

On that measure both are almost always below a previous high: 94% of days for Gold and 97% for Bitcoin. The difference is how far below.

Bitcoin was more than 20% below its running peak on 74.2% of days in the window. Gold was on 5.1%. Bitcoin was more than 50% below on 41.8% of days. Gold never was.

We treat a store of value as a question about holding periods. So we took every start date in the window and measured the return one, three and five years later.

Over one year, Gold's worst outcome was a loss of 17.1% and Bitcoin's was a loss of 83.4%. Over three years Gold's worst was 14.3% and Bitcoin's 13.2%. Over five years Gold's worst was 8.0% and Bitcoin's 13.2%.

At one year the two worst cases are 66 points apart. At five years they are 5.

How often each lost money runs the other way. At one year it is 31.0% for Gold and 32.6% for Bitcoin. At three years it is 9.0% and 0.3%. At five years it is 3.8% and 0.2%.

Past one year, losing windows were far rarer for Bitcoin than for Gold.

The tails are where they part. Bitcoin lost more than 20% over a year in 25.4% of windows and more than 50% in 11.3%. Gold did neither in any one-year window.

Two things cut against the reading that the two assets converge.

The first is that the window flatters Bitcoin. It opens when Bitcoin traded at $755 and covers a period in which it survived and rose. Every start date sits inside that run.

The three and five-year windows also stop early: a five-year window needs a start date before October 2021, so the most recent years appear only in the one-year figures.

The second is that the window opens part-way through Gold's own worst period. Gold peaked in August 2011, fell 45.6% to December 2015 and did not regain that level until July 2020.

From peak to recovery that is 8.94 years, three times as long as Bitcoin took to come back from its worst fall. The peak sits before 2014, so the episode is not like-for-like with Bitcoin, though its low and its whole recovery fall inside our window. It is still the honest answer to what Gold's worst looks like.

The holding-period shares also rest on overlapping windows, so they are shares of start dates and not independent events.

One more limit. These are price returns in US dollars, not inflation-adjusted ones. A store of value in the strict sense is a real-terms question. We have not measured that here.

Over the full window the correlation of their daily returns was 0.089. A correlation of 1 means two assets move in lockstep and 0 means their moves are unrelated. So the two were close to unrelated.

That figure is low but unstable. Measured over rolling one-year periods it ran from negative 0.120 to positive 0.339. It was below zero in 30.0% of them. The latest reading, for the year to 16 October 2026, is 0.298, near the top of its range.

Gold and Bitcoin lose money about as often over a year. Bitcoin loses far more when it does. It also spends far longer deeply under water.

Stretch the holding period to three or five years and the worst cases draw much closer. That is on a window that starts with Bitcoin at $755 and leaves out Gold's 2011 peak.

This explainer is part of the YX Insights Academy. Each one takes a single idea and checks it against real data.

The same approach runs through everything else we publish:

Good places to start on the website:

Yes, by about four times. Over 2 January 2014 to 16 October 2026 Bitcoin's annualised volatility was 67.9% and Gold's was 16.2%. Bitcoin was the more volatile in every year from 2016 onward, from more than nine times Gold in 2017 to 1.5 times in 2026 to date.

Bitcoin, by a wide margin. Its worst fall in this window was 83.4%, from December 2017 to December 2018. It took until November 2020 to regain that peak. Gold's worst in the same window was 26.4%, from January to July 2026. It had not recovered by 16 October 2026. Gold's worst fall on a longer view was 45.6%, from August 2011 to December 2015, which took until July 2020 to recover.

Over three and five years it comes close; over one year it does not. Gold lost at most 14.3% over three years and 8.0% over five, against 13.2% for Bitcoin on both. Over one year Bitcoin lost more than 50% in 11.3% of windows. Gold never lost more than 17.1% in any.

Barely. The correlation of their daily returns over the window was 0.089, where 1 is lockstep and 0 is unrelated. It is not stable: measured over rolling one-year periods it ran from negative 0.120 to positive 0.339 and was below zero in 30.0% of them. The reading for the year to 16 October 2026 is 0.298.

DISCLAIMER: This article is strictly educational. Any information or analysis in this note is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities. Nothing in this note is intended to be investment advice and nor should it be relied upon to make investment decisions. Any opinions, analyses, or probabilities expressed in this note are those of the author as of the note's date of publication and are subject to change without notice.