Morning Minute: Bitcoin vs Gold and the Race to New ATHs

Morning Minute is a each day e-newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The evaluation and opinions expressed are his personal and don’t essentially mirror these of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

At this time’s high information:

• Crypto majors chop on the day, Bitcoin holds at $123,000
• ZCash soars 35% main all crypto movers; RAIL jumps 100%
• Jack Dorsey’s Block rolls out Bitcoin service provider funds with Sq.
• Luxembourg sovereign wealth fund invests 1% of property into BTC
• Jupiter groups with Ethena to launch JupUSD stablecoin

 Bitcoin vs. Gold: Two ATHs, Two Totally different Narratives

Each “digital gold” and the unique simply printed contemporary ATHs.

Gold has been the quicker horse up to now this 12 months – however will that pattern proceed?

📌 What Occurred

Bitcoin broke to a brand new all-time excessive on Oct 6, reaching $126,000.

Then simply 2 days later, Gold hit a brand new ATH at $4.070.

That places gold up a whopping 52% YTD, vs a paltry 32% for Bitcoin.

Every has their very own set of drivers, with Bitcoin driving a $5.3B wave of ETF inflows and IBIT rising to the highest spot for all ETFs.

Whereas gold continues to profit from rate-cut bets, safe-haven demand and central banks piling in.

However Bitcoin nonetheless pales in dimension to gold. Gold is sitting at simply over $27T in market cap, whereas Bitcoin is at $2.6T.

Which means gold is over 10x Bitcoin’s market cap. And actually, Gold has added the complete crypto market cap of $4.2T over simply the previous 3 months.

We’re so early.

🧠 Why It Issues – Gold vs Bitcoin

So which asset has the higher setup in October 2025?

Bitcoin

• ETF bid is again in drive: Spot BTC ETF inflows of $1.2B on Monday have been the 2nd highest behind Nov 7 – the Trump pump day. These stay a persistent, rules-driven purchaser.
• Tightening float: Change balances have slid to multi-year lows as cash transfer off venues, amplifying value influence when new ETF demand hits.
• Macro (price cuts & seasonality): Softer knowledge and rising minimize odds propel the Bitcoin bull case, paired with conventional “Uptober” positioning.

Gold

• Structural consumers at scale (China). Central banks have been buying ~1,000 tonnes/12 months (near-record tempo in ’22–’23) and stored including this 12 months, with China and the BRICS main the best way
• ETF participation returned. Gold-backed ETFs noticed robust inflows into the transfer, reinforcing futures/spot power and broadening the demand base past official sector shopping for.
• Decrease real-rate expectations + security bid. Anticipated Fed cuts, a weaker greenback and macro/political nervousness (together with the U.S. shutdown) have helped funnel flows into gold.

The protected guess is to personal each.

However being a playing man myself, I like Bitcoin’s setup extra.

Total the first driver of each property is the debasement commerce, and that basic driver isn’t going away any time quickly.

What separates Bitcoin from gold for me personally is the generational wealth switch that can occur over the approaching a long time as boomers go away their wealth to millenials and zoomers.

That’s a era raised within the digital age, and they’re much extra prone to flip to digital gold (Bitcoin) over conventional.

I like Bitcoin to shut the hole over the approaching decade considerably and ultimately flip. However that’s seemingly a long time away…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

A couple of Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are mixed and consolidating; BTC even at $123,000, ETH -2% at $4,380, BNB -2% at $1,285, SOL +1% at $224
• ZEC (+38%), XMR (+4%) and ENA (+3%) led high movers
• ZEC is up over 140% in the past two weeks on the again of recent Grayscale entry and help from Naval
• The BTC ETFs saw another $440M in net inflows yesterday, conserving their 8-day influx streak; ETH additionally stored its 8-day streak with $69M in inflows
• Jack Dorsey’s Block rolled out new merchant Bitcoin payments and an built-in pockets, letting companies settle for BTC and convert gross sales inside Sq.’s stack
• MetaMask added native Hyperliquid swaps in pockets whereas additionally signaling a possible Polymarket integration
• Luxembourg’s Intergenerational Wealth Fund invested 1% of its holdings into Bitcoin ETFs
• Bloomberg deemed Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan youngest self-made billionaire
• Coinbase launched staking in New York, enabling ETH, SOL, ATOM and others for beforehand excluded residents

In Company Treasuries / ETFs

In Memes

• Memecoin leaders are mostly red; DOGE -4%, Shiba -4%, PEPE -6%, PENGU -5%, BONK -4%, TRUMP -4%, SPX +6%, and FARTCOIN -13%
• BNB memes largely cooled off, although BNBHolder ran 67x to $70M and Meme Rush jumped 17x to $18M
• Over on Solana, Pumpfun Pepe (PFP) jumped 86% to $5M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Right here’s a rundown of main token, protocol and airdrop information from the day:

• Jupiter teamed with Ethena to launch its native stablecoin JupUSD on Solana
• CCP Video games announced its new survival MMO EVE Frontier to be absolutely constructed on Sui
• Coinflow raised $25M to broaden stablecoin funds, pitching quicker service provider settlement versus legacy processors
• Plume acquired Dinero to broaden institutional DeFi yields, integrating staking with its RWA platform and transfer-agent standing
• Soccer dot Enjoyable announced its NFL product following its success with Soccer
• Hyperswap announced its TGE coming October 20

🚚 What is going on in NFTs?

Right here is the record of different notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• NFT leaders were mostly red; Punks even at 48.4 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 9.4, BAYC even at 8.81 ETH; Hypurr’s -1% at 1,248 HYPE
• Doodles (+6%) have been notable high mover
• Punk Technique had a roller coaster day, dropping to $100M then rebounding to $180M (now again to $140M) after founder Rhynotic and Jack Butcher carried out adjustments to the technique protocol shopping for mechanics
• Verify Technique (CHKSTR) debuted, working as excessive as $5M at peak earlier than settling at $3M forward of immediately’s VIBESTR launch
• OpenSea expanded into Telegram tokens and NFTs