Schiff: Bitcoin Is ‘Anti-Gold’ as War and Inflation Lift Metals

Peter Schiff labeled bitcoin “anti-gold” as rising geopolitical tensions and higher energy prices coincided with gains in gold and silver while bitcoin fell below $64,000 on Aug. 10. Schiff is chief executive of Euro Pacific Asset Management and has long criticized bitcoin; he set out his view on X and in commentary from his team.

Schiff presented year-to-date returns to support his argument: gold up about 9%, silver up about 11%, the Nasdaq up roughly 13%, the Russell 2000 up about 14%, and bitcoin down about 11% over the same period. He said the gap between gold and bitcoin returns widened at times to about 20 percentage points.

His team attributed the metals’ strength to the active conflict, a jump in oil prices and rising inflation pressure that moved some investors toward traditional safe havens. Gold traded near $4,378 an ounce on Aug. 10 and remained well above its level at the start of the year. Silver reached a nominal record of $121.67 in January and has stayed near high levels.

Schiff also pointed to rising Treasury yields after bond selloffs and changes in public messaging around the conflict as factors supporting demand for metals rather than renewed faith in fiat currencies.

On bitcoin, he noted the recent fall below $64,000 extended a stretch of underperformance against the other major asset classes he tracks, including equities. He wrote on X: “Bitcoin is finally the uncorrelated asset you’ve hoped it would be. Even when risk-on and risk-off assets rise, Bitcoin falls.”

He revisited earlier warnings about large corporate bitcoin holdings, highlighting a corporate treasury company holding roughly 840,000 BTC and noting that the firm began selling coins at a loss this year.

Supporters of bitcoin responded that a single period of short-term divergence does not resolve the longer debate over whether bitcoin functions as a store of value. They pointed to gold’s own history of sharp drawdowns in some crises and to the fact that correlations between asset classes can change over different time frames.