On the stock market, everything revolves around rotation between the major asset classes, and when it comes to Bitcoin, there is a powerful relative cycle with precious metals, with the underlying trend in gold and silver. Read Vincent Ganne’s analysis.
Gold and silver have crushed BTC over the past year
Will the price of Bitcoin be able to recover in the first quarter of 2026, as the debate rages over whether the market has entered a cyclical bear market or is merely undergoing a mid-cycle correction before setting a new record?
On the stock market, everything is a matter of rotation between the major asset classes, and when it comes to BTC, there is a powerful relative cycle with precious metals, with the underlying trend in gold and silver. Last year, precious metals crushed the competition, with silver up more than 150% and gold up more than 60%, while BTC ended the year down.
These three markets benefit from a wide range of US spot ETFs, and it is this investment vehicle that creates a phenomenon of communicating vessels. In short, it is inconceivable that the price of bitcoin will resume a fundamental upward trend as long as gold and silver continue their vertical upward movement on the commodities market.
Gold and silver are now the world’s two largest market capitalizations, ahead of the Magnificent 7, and bitcoin is now much smaller, even half the size of silver on the stock market.
The BTC/GOLD and BTC/SILVER ratios are under scrutiny.
Technical analysis of the BITCOIN/GOLD and BITCOIN/SILVER ratios provides a good assessment of the relative cycle between the trend in precious metals and the trend in BTC. Historically, each major trough in these two ratios corresponds to the end of a cyclical downturn for BTC.
At this stage, technical analysis of these two ratios shows a situation of massive overselling, which is favorable to a rotation in favor of BTC. However, a market can remain oversold for a very long time before showing signs of a bullish reversal. These two ratios must therefore be monitored very closely, as a cyclical rotation is clearly approaching, which should allow BTC to rebound.
From a purely macro-financial perspective, this dynamic is part of a broader trend toward seeking protection from monetary erosion, structural government debt, and persistent geopolitical uncertainties. Gold and silver are playing their role as safe-haven assets to the full, while bitcoin, still perceived as a more volatile asset, has historically tended to outperform in the second phase, once the initial stress has been absorbed by the markets.
On a technical level, ratio charts show an advanced compression of BTC’s downward trends against precious metals, with long-term support levels reached or being tested. This type of configuration has often preceded phases of Bitcoin catching up, not necessarily against the dollar, but first against gold and silver, signaling a gradual return of risk appetite.
It is also interesting to note that BTC cycles tend to align with periods of relative, rather than absolute, capitulation. In other words, Bitcoin does not need gold and silver to collapse in order to rebound, but simply for their bullish momentum to run out of steam enough to free up flows to assets with higher performance potential.
Thus, until the BTC/XAU and BTC/XAG ratios confirm a clear bullish reversal, any recovery in Bitcoin will remain fragile and subject to high volatility.
On the other hand, a stabilization and then a reversal of these ratios would be a major signal that the cyclical rotation is well underway, paving the way for a new phase of BTC outperformance in the coming months.
