Friday, October 10, 2025 marks the day Bitcoin failed the “digital gold” test. Wall Street was hemorrhaging. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 fell more than 3%, and Bitcoin lost more than $10,000 in value within minutes.
But real gold did exactly what a safe haven is supposed to do: hold the line. The yellow metal calmly absorbed the geopolitical shock, hitting record highs of more than $4,000 an ounce. Code? I couldn’t avoid the confusion. It became chaos.
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Bitcoin and Gold Live in Two Different Realities
Investors rushed to safety as global markets soared over President Trump’s new 100% tariffs on China and Beijing’s threat to block rare earth exports.
Gold prices rose like a seasoned veteran, with capital inflows increasing and volatility subdued. It was the ultimate “I told you so” moment for the Old World.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin, the self-proclaimed heir to the safe-haven throne, did what high-beta assets do when liquidity wanes. In other words, it was cracked.
The price fell below $110,000, down 8-10% in a single session. Ethereum and the altcoin pack plummeted by 15-30%.
In an intense few hours, $20 billion worth of long positions were liquidated across Binance, Bybit, and HyperLiquid. The cryptocurrency complex could not escape the storm.
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Economic reality check for the crypto market
Here is the unvarnished truth. Gold is a passive asset. There is no yield, no leverage, and no counterparties. It shines when politics get ugly, supply chains tighten, and the dollar fluctuates.
On the other hand, Bitcoin is becoming increasingly financialized. It trades like technology. Most of its trading volume flows through leveraged products and perpetual futures.
When liquidity gets tight, Bitcoin behaves less like gold and more like a growth stock with a caffeine problem.
Friday proved that point. The moment the world turned “risk-off”, the correlation between Bitcoin and stocks skyrocketed. Technology has fallen, but cryptocurrencies have fallen even further.
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A week of telling the truth
The contrast couldn’t be more vivid. From Monday to Wednesday, both assets hovered near all-time highs, with gold hovering between $3,970 and $4,060 and Bitcoin topping $125,000.
Then came President Trump’s tariff bomb. Cracks have appeared in the U.S. market, putting its safe-haven outlook under stress test.
Gold has caught the flow, but Bitcoin has grabbed the margin call.
That wasn’t the day the “digital gold” myth quietly died. Cleared in real time.
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Don’t cry, put away the tissues
Does that mean Bitcoin can never be compared to gold again? Not necessarily.
In the long arc, both share the same appeal of limited supply, decentralization, and independence from central banks.
But in a crisis, the difference is behavioral, not philosophical. Gold absorbs panic, but cryptocurrencies transmit it.
The October 10 crash was a reality check for the market. There were no influencer threads or hopium, just wild price movements. Gold was a shock absorber. Cryptography was that accelerator.
So before you call Bitcoin “digital gold” again, remember this lesson. Narratives don’t protect portfolios; liquidity protects them.
Moral of the story: Comparison is not correlation. And when all fall, only one of them will still shine.
