Gold and silver have gone on a record-setting tear in recent months, ripping through fresh all-time highs, while Bitcoin has been stuck grinding sideways in a tight $84,000โ$94,000 box since mid-November. In a January 27 video posted to X, Anthony Pompliano argued the gap is less about a single catalyst and more about shifting demand drivers, market structure, and a new fight for attention and risk capital.
Pompliano framed the disconnect with blunt scorekeeping. โWe have gold, which is up 80% in the last year. Silverโs up 250%, copperโs up 40%, and platinumโs up nearly 200% over the last 12 months,โ he said, before turning to the contrast: โAt the same exact time, Bitcoin is down 16% over the last year.โ
In his telling, the metals arenโt moving as a monolith, theyโre responding to different sources of demand. Gold, he said, is benefiting from central banks accumulating reserves and what he described as โa definitization of the global economy,โ where flows rotate out of dollars not into other fiat, but into gold.
Silver, by contrast, is less about store-of-value positioning and more about industrial pull. Pompliano pointed to defense equipment, AI hardware, and self-driving cars as examples of end-demand, arguing that โthe world is building things againโ and that re-industrialization makes silver a direct beneficiary.
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Copper and platinum, in his framework, are even cleaner industrial stories. Copper rides electrification (EVs, grid buildouts, renewables) and โsignificant industrial demand.โ Platinumโs move, he argued, is supply constrained, describing โvery, very low supplyโ that creates a market structure favorable to holders. Pompliano also highlighted what he called a rotation within metals where gold led, then silver, and more recently copper and platinum, a sequence he dubbed โthe metals mania.โ
So Why Hasnโt Bitcoin Joined The Run?
Pomplianoโs first answer was structural: Wall Streetโs adoption is changing who holds Bitcoin and how it trades. He described an โIPO moment of Bitcoin,โ (referring to Jordy Visserโs theory), where long-term holders have been handing coins off to institutional players.
In Pomplianoโs view, some early holders owned Bitcoin precisely because it was โoutside the system,โ and the assetโs migration into mainstream finance may reduce enthusiasm from that cohort. He also pointed to public comments from Peter Thiel and others suggesting Bitcoinโs future may be less โasymmetricโ than its early years.
The second structural shift is the proliferation of financial instruments around BTC. โIt used to be really hard to short Bitcoin. Well, now you can do it very simply,โ Pompliano said, arguing that options and shorting change the marketโs plumbing and dampen volatility. โBitcoin used to be an 80 vol asset. Now itโs more like a 40 vol asset,โ he added, positioning the trade-off as fewer parabolic upside phases but also fewer catastrophic drawdowns.
From there, Pompliano moved to narrative demand โ specifically, the idea that Bitcoin had been treated as a โchaos hedge.โ He argued that recent perceptions of rising geopolitical stability have reduced the perceived need for that insurance bid, while central banks, with far larger pools of capital, continue to express their hedge preference through gold. โIt seems like there is not as much of a bid for Bitcoin coming as this insurance hedge,โ he said, stressing he viewed it as a flow and narrative issue rather than a loss of utility.
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He made a similar point about inflation hedging, claiming disinflation has undercut one of Bitcoinโs most effective recent narratives. Citing Trueflation, Pompliano said the metric showed 1.2% inflation, โ150 basis points lower than it was just 90 days ago,โ and argued that AI and tariffs are deflationary forces. If investors donโt expect inflation to run hot, he reasoned, some capital simply wonโt reach BTC.
Finally, he argued Bitcoin is losing mindshare and speculative oxygen to AI and to a broader set of โrisk-takingโ outlets. โThere is simply more competition,โ Pompliano said, extending the idea beyond markets into an attention economy where every asset competes when users open a financial app and decide where to allocate leftover cash. In that framing, Bitcoin is no longer the default high-upside wager for younger participants; itโs competing with AI equities, prediction markets, and sports betting.
Why is bitcoin lagging while gold, silver, copper, and platinum continue to go higher?
I break down the forces driving the metals rally, how Wall Street adoption has reshaped Bitcoinโs market structure, and why inflation expectations, global stability, and AI are influencingโฆ pic.twitter.com/VzATl6ZCYi
โ Anthony Pompliano ๐ช (@APompliano) January 27, 2026
Pomplianoโs closing message was that laggards can catch up and that he sees Bitcoin as โmore interesting sitting at $87,000 than it was at $126,000.โ But he also cautioned that a lower-volatility, more institutional Bitcoin may demand a different temperament from holders. โIf you actually get impatient, youโre going to be disappointed. Youโre going to get shaken out,โ he said, arguing that the trade increasingly resembles a waiting game rather than a yearly sprint.
At press time, BTC traded at $88,131.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
