Bitcoin's long-standing narrative as “digital gold” is being tested as its recent price performance increasingly resembles that of a dangerous growth asset relatively than a conventional safe-haven asset, in accordance with latest research from Grayscale.
The report's creator, Zach Pandl, said on Tuesday that Grayscale still views Bitcoin (BTC) as a long-term store of value resulting from its fixed supply and independence from central bank authorities, but recent market behavior suggests otherwise.
“Bitcoin’s short-term price movements should not closely correlated with gold or other precious metals,” Pandl wrote, citing record increases in gold and silver prices.
Instead, the evaluation found that Bitcoin has developed a robust correlation with software stocks, particularly since early 2024. This sector has come under intense selling pressure recently amid concerns that artificial intelligence could disrupt or render obsolete many software services.
Bitcoin's recent crash mirrors the decline in software stocks for the reason that start of 2026. Source: Grayscale
The report suggests that Bitcoin's growing sensitivity to stocks and growth assets reflects its deeper integration into traditional financial markets, driven partially by institutional participation, exchange-traded fund activity and changing macroeconomic risk sentiment.
The shift comes as Bitcoin has seen a roughly 50% decline since its October peak of over $126,000. The decline occurred in multiple waves, starting with a historic liquidation event in October 2025, followed by renewed selling in late November and again in late January 2026. Grayscale also cited “motivated U.S. sellers” in recent weeks, pointing to continued price discounts at Coinbase.
Part of Bitcoin's ongoing development
According to Grayscale, Bitcoin's recent failure to live as much as its safe-haven narrative mustn’t be viewed as a setback, but relatively as a part of the asset's ongoing evolution.
Pandl said it will have been unrealistic to expect Bitcoin to interchange gold as an investment in such a brief time period.
“Gold has been used as money for hundreds of years and served because the backbone of the international monetary system until the early Nineteen Seventies,” Pandl wrote.
While Bitcoin's failure to attain similar monetary status is “central to the investment thesis,” he said, it could evolve in that direction over time as the worldwide economy becomes increasingly digitalized through artificial intelligence, autonomous agents and tokenized financial markets.
Despite recent underperformance, Bitcoin's annualized returns have significantly exceeded those of gold over the past decade. Source: Grayscale
In the short term, Bitcoin's recovery could depend upon fresh capital entering the market, either through renewed ETF inflows or a return of retail investors. Market maker Wintermute said retail participation has recently been focused on AI-related stocks and growth narratives, limiting near-term demand for crypto assets.
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