Bitcoin price stumbles as gold price hits $2.5K for the first time ever

Bitcoin ( BTC ) disappointed at the Aug. 16 Wall Street open as rangebound BTC price action contrasted with new record highs for gold.

Analyst: Limp BTC price upside "telling"

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD surfing both ends of a $1,500 intraday trading range.

Having avoided a retest of $56,000 lows from the day prior, Bitcoin nonetheless failed to impress market observers.

“The fact BTC will not go up on good news is probably more telling than people wish to accept,” Filbfilb, co-founder of trading suite DecenTrader, commented on X.

Filbfilb pointed to both gold and equities outperforming Bitcoin currently, with the former posting new all-time highs of $2,500 on the day.

Year-to-date, XAU/USD is up 21% — albeit still lower than Bitcoin’s 38%.

In his own reaction, Charles Edwards, the founder of quantitative Bitcoin and digital asset fund Capriole Investments, struck a more positive tone, calling for “patience” while acknowledging that Bitcoin’s recovery from macro lows at the start of August had been “behind other asset classes.”

Earlier, Edwards nonetheless suggested that Bitcoin should ultimately follow gold higher, given historical precedent. The gap between a gold and Bitcoin move, he showed, is  around three months .

Bitcoin stocks correlation to return in 2025

Comparing BTC price action to stocks, meanwhile, Benjamin Cowen, CEO and founder of analytics resource Into the Cryptoverse, drew similar comparisons to previous market cycles.

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“As a reminder, in 2019, also a year that the Fed cut rates, BTC diverged from SPX as well,” he wrote in an X post alongside a chart of the SP 500.

Cowen referred to the presumed course of the United States Federal Reserve this year, which markets see lowering interest rates next month.

“So many people keep acting like this stuff is unprecedented and hard to believe, but the *exact* same thing happened last cycle,” Cowen added.

In subsequent comments , he gave a timeline of 2025 for the positive correlation between the two assets to return.

Earlier, Cointelegraph reported on similarly unimpressive moves by Bitcoin compared to Japanese stocks, which canceled out their record plunge from two weeks prior.

Longtime Bitcoin analyst Tuur Demeester, however, said that a fresh comedown could easily strike BTC markets once more.

"To be clear: the bleeding likely isn't over!" he warned on the day.

"A pullback to $45k isn't unthinkable, e.g. if we see a big selloff in the stock markets. Be sure to keep your seatbelts fastened."

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.