Returns compared
| Period | Bitcoin | Gold | Bitcoin in gold | A year, compounded bitcoin / gold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year from 25 Oct 2025 | −28.3% | −2.7% | −26.3% | – |
| 3 years from 25 Oct 2023 | +132.1% | +103.9% | +13.8% | +32.4% / +26.8% |
| 5 years from 25 Oct 2021 | +26.9% | +120.7% | −42.5% | +4.9% / +17.2% |
| Whole record from 24 Jan 2020 | +849.6% | +153.8% | +274.1% | +39.6% / +14.8% |
| Year | Bitcoin | Gold | Bitcoin in gold | Higher return |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 to 25 Oct 2026 | −8.5% | −7.8% | −0.8% | Gold |
| 2025 | −6.3% | +64.7% | −43.1% | Gold |
| 2024 | +120.8% | +29.8% | +70.1% | Bitcoin |
| 2023 | +155.8% | +11.3% | +129.8% | Bitcoin |
| 2022 | −64.2% | −0.7% | −64.0% | Gold |
| 2021 | +59.5% | −5.1% | +68.0% | Bitcoin |
| 2020 from 24 Jan 2020 | +243.6% | +22.7% | +180.1% | Bitcoin |
- Over the past year bitcoin returned −28.3% and gold −2.7%, so bitcoin bought 26.3% less gold at the end than at the start.
- Bitcoin had the higher return in 4 of the 7 calendar years in our gold record (2026 so far included).
- "Bitcoin in gold" is the change in the number of ounces one bitcoin buys: it is positive whenever bitcoin did better than gold, even if both fell.
Returns are price changes between daily closes (00:00 UTC), with no income: gold pays none and bitcoin none. A year compounded is the steady yearly rate that gives the same total.
Drawdowns
BitcoinGold (tokenised)
| Highest close | Below it on 25 Oct 2026 | Days since | Deepest fall since 2020 | From high to low | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin | $124,766 6 Oct 2025 | −35.8% | 384 | −76.7% | 8 Nov 2021 – 21 Nov 2022 |
| Gold (tokenised) | $5,528 28 Jan 2026 | −27.7% | 270 | −27.9% | 28 Jan 2026 – 16 Jul 2026 |
Highs and falls are daily closes, not intraday prices. Gold's highest close is the highest in our tokenised gold record, which starts on 24 January 2020; earlier gold prices are not in it.
Bitcoin's market value in gold
- At the close of 25 October 2026, the 20,103,568 bitcoin issued so far were worth 402.4 million troy ounces of gold, about 12,517 tonnes.
- That is the supply on our Free circulating supply chart multiplied by the ounces one bitcoin bought that day (20.02). It counts every coin issued, including coins that are lost.
- We do not estimate the value of all the gold above ground: we found no estimate of the world's gold stock published under terms that let us republish it.
How the figures are calculated
Bitcoin: BTC/USD prices are the site's admitted daily closes: retained retrospective closes from The Bitcoin Time Machine (CC BY 4.0) until 2 October 2026, then quotes recorded by CryptoKeyhole at each UTC day boundary (within 15 minutes of it, never carried forward). Each day's close is the price at its ending boundary, 00:00 UTC the next day. Daily closes start on 17 July 2010; hourly quotes start on 3 October 2026.
Gold: CryptoKeyhole's own index of tokenised gold. PAXG (issued by Paxos) and XAUt (issued by Tether) each represent one troy ounce of gold held by their issuer, and they trade around the clock on crypto exchanges. For every hour we take the closing price of each of their US dollar, USDT and USDC markets that traded in the hour on the exchanges whose public market data we collect, and use the volume-weighted median, the method of our own BTC and ETH prices (stablecoins counted at one dollar). A day's close is the last hour's close, the price at 00:00 UTC, the same moment as bitcoin's close. The markets:
- Bitfinex XAUt/USD, from 24 Jan 2020
- Bitfinex XAUt/USDT, from 25 Jan 2020
- Binance PAXG/USDT, from 28 Aug 2020
- KuCoin PAXG/USDT, from 10 Nov 2021
- OKX XAUt/USDT, from 19 Jul 2022
- Bybit XAUt/USDT, from 11 Apr 2025
- Binance PAXG/USDC, from 15 Apr 2025
- Coinbase PAXG/USD, from 8 May 2025
- KuCoin XAUt/USDT, from 25 Jun 2025
- OKX PAXG/USDT, from 15 Oct 2025
- Bitstamp PAXG/USD, from 19 Mar 2026
- Binance XAUt/USDT, from 26 Mar 2026
Tokenised gold follows the spot gold price closely, not exactly: a token can trade at a small premium or discount, it keeps trading at weekends while the London and New York gold markets are shut, and its early markets were thin. Over the past year the two tokens' daily closes differed by a median of 0.20% (largest 1.38%, on 1 March 2026). Our gold record starts on 24 January 2020, the first day with public hourly prices on those exchanges. It measures gold as traded in tokenised form; it is not an official gold price.
The ratio is bitcoin's close divided by gold's close at the same 00:00 UTC boundary; today's figure pairs bitcoin's quote at the latest hour with gold's close for that hour. Returns compare two closes on the same dates for both. A drawdown is a close against the highest close up to that day. Figures are recalculated every ten minutes, and the gold index is updated with every hour.
Questions
How many ounces of gold is one bitcoin worth?
Has bitcoin done better than gold?
Does bitcoin move with gold?
Why is gold priced from PAXG and XAUt?
They are tokens each backed by one troy ounce of gold, traded around the clock on the same exchanges as bitcoin, so their prices can be read at exactly the same moment as bitcoin's daily close. None of the official sources we use publishes a daily gold price we can republish. The tokens follow the spot price closely but can trade at a small premium or discount, so the page calls them what they are.
How far are bitcoin and gold below their highs?
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Figures on this page are calculated by CryptoKeyhole from our own BTC/USD closes and the public market data we collect, and refreshed automatically. Nothing here is investment advice.