Duke University’s Campbell Harvey investigated whether bitcoin is a true competitor to gold as a “safe haven” asset. While both have been considered by investors as stores of value and potential hedges against market stress, his analysis revealed that gold continues to maintain a more stable role in times of crisis. Bitcoin, despite its rapid ascent as a digital asset, faces unique systemic and technical risks that gold does not. The relationship between gold and bitcoin, once closely linked, has started to diverge, with gold reasserting itself as the preferred crisis hedge during recent periods of financial uncertainty.

Gold and Bitcoin Characteristics

Harvey, author of the September 2025 paper, “Gold and Bitcoin” compared the safe-haven properties, risk characteristics, and performance of gold and bitcoin. Specifically, his analysis reviewed:

  • The historical and recent price correlations between the two assets.
  • The performance of each asset during market shocks and periods of heightened volatility.
  • The distinct types of risk each asset faces, including technical risks unique to bitcoin, such as the threat of quantum computing and attacks on blockchain security.
  • The macroeconomic and regulatory factors driving the investor preference for one asset over the other, particularly as institutional involvement in crypto markets has grown and central banks continue to stockpile gold.

Key Findings on Gold and Bitcoin

Harvey found:

1. Bitcoin (a digital asset) and gold (a physical asset) share several traits that help to explain why investors may lump them together:

  • Both are scarce and almost impossible to replicate or counterfeit.
  • Both gold and bitcoin production are energy-intensive, but bitcoin production is more so.
  • Neither bitcoin nor gold intrinsically generates cash flow.
  • Gold and bitcoin also have low “inflation” rates (rate of increase of supply), with both being below the annual increase in the CPI. Gold’s annual inflation—annual mine production divided by the estimated above-ground stock—has been below 2% in each of the past 12 years; in 2024, it was 1.75%. Bitcoin’s inflation rate has been declining steadily from about 15% in 2013 to just 1.1% in 2024.
  • Mining costs are high for both assets. Bitcoin mining consumes massive amounts of energy and requires large capital expenditures. Miners invest heavily in specialized hardware that depreciates quickly. Gold is expensive to mine, with all-in sustaining cost estimates ranging from $1,150 to $1,400 per ounce.

2. Gold mining is geographically constrained, whereas bitcoin mining is mobile.

3. While gold and bitcoin moved in tight correlation from 2022 to 2024, that relationship broke down early in 2025. The strength of gold’s traditional safe-haven appeal remains stronger during times of crisis, in contrast to bitcoin’s volatility.

4. Gold continues to outperform bitcoin in periods of geopolitical or market stress, reaffirming its reputation as a risk-off asset. Bitcoin, meanwhile, tends to move with broader risk assets, sometimes amplifying portfolio volatility rather than protecting against it.

5. Despite divergences, both assets retain potential diversification and store-of-value benefits, but gold’s legacy and regulatory clarity offer more-consistent protection for investors.

Gold’s and Bitcoin’s risks few talk about

  • A harsh light is often cast on bitcoin’s electricity use, yet gold mining consumes a similar amount of power and has additional environmental consequences, such as tailings, water use, and habitat disruption, so gold may exact a higher ecological toll than bitcoin.
  • As a physical asset, gold is vulnerable to seizure.
  • Gold is not legal tender, and bitcoin is legal tender only in El Salvador. Both can be banned. The US outlawed physical gold from 1933 to 1974. China banned bitcoin in full, and India banned it in part.
  • Gold and fiat currencies may be subject to capital controls. With its decentralized ledger, bitcoin is more resistant to such measures as well as direct sovereign control more generally because it does not depend on any national banking system.
  • Bitcoin is much less liquid and at least 4 times as volatile as gold, with several drawdowns of more than 70% in its short history. Writes Harvey, “A sale of 100,000 BTC, worth about $11.8 billion, would rival that of 109 tons of gold. Bitcoin’s average trading volume is about $50 billion, so the $11.8-billion sale could lead to a massive 25% price drop. The gold transaction, however, would represent maybe 5% of daily turnover and have a much smaller market impact, perhaps 2%.”
  • Bitcoin faces existential threats not present for gold, such as the potential for quantum (allowing for reverse engineering of a private key) or criminal attacks on the blockchain (such as a 51% attack to control the network), as well as regulation risk. Harvey stated that his analysis led him to conclude: “By the time quantum computers are powerful enough to reverse engineer private keys, quantum-resistant technologies should be widely available.” However, he added that he believes the risk of a 51% attack is understated.
  • Gold also has a unique risk since transmuting one element into another (using particle accelerators and nuclear fusion) is no longer a fantastical dream but a serious research topic. Scientific advances suggest that the future gold supply and gold prices could be augmented and lowered, respectively, through transmutation from other elements. There is also the potential of increased supply from the oceans, which contain roughly 25 times the amount of above-ground gold. However, currently, the economics of extraction do not work. Other potential new sources are near-Earth asteroids, which contain metals with estimates of as many as 62.7 million tons of gold, or 290 times the existing above-ground supply, that could be situated near Earth in outer space.

His findings led Harvey to conclude: “Labeling bitcoin ‘digital gold’ is an oversimplification. Given its singular characteristics, bitcoin is unlikely to replace gold as the preferred safe-haven asset of investors.” He added that bitcoin “is hardly a safe-haven asset. Still, both bitcoin and gold can play important roles in diversified portfolios. But since they face different risks, betting exclusively on one or the other is unwise.”

Key takeaways for investors

  • Gold remains the go-to safe haven: In 2025, gold has lived up to its historic role, attracting flows in times of stress even as bitcoin underperformed.
  • Bitcoin is riskier in crises: Investors seeking stability still cannot rely on bitcoin in the same way as gold, due to its correlation with risk-on assets and susceptibility to unique technological threats.
  • Diversification, not substitution: Bitcoin may still serve as a diversifier in portfolios, but it should not be viewed as a substitute for gold as a crisis hedge.
  • Stay alert to trend changes: Shifts in the correlation between gold and bitcoin prompt regular reassessment of portfolio allocations and risk management approaches, especially as new regulatory and technical developments emerge.

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