While crypto natives lament Bitcoin’s underperformance compared to precious metals, institutional traders are eyeing the digital asset.
On one of BTC’s worst days in recent memory, JP Morgan’s quantitative strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou is taking the contrarian approach and says that not only is Bitcoin undervalued, but it looks “even more attractive compared to gold.”
Panigitzoglou says that liquidations have been “more modest” despite the asset’s poor recent performance, and highlighted that the bitcoin-to-gold volatility ratio is at a “record low” in a recent investor research note, according to Yahoo Finance.
However, BTC is currently down 13.3% today compared to gold’s 3% decline, so that ratio gap is closing quickly.
Bitcoin’s stark underperformance relative to gold continues a trend that began when the new U.S. administration took office in January 2025. Gold is up 80% since Trump entered office, while BTC is down 37% over the same period.
While retail crypto traders have struggled to reconcile gold’s outperformance, Bitcoin analyst Willy Woo cites several reasons, including quantum computing threats and the marginal buyers in each asset class.
On Jan. 25, Woo said, “It’s really hard to convince sovereigns and fiduciary institutions to buy a nascent asset like BTC with 17 years of history (which is less than a retail home mortgage). Then think about their perspective on quantum uncertainty over the next 5-15 years.”