Morning Minute: Bitcoin vs Gold and the Race to New ATHs – Decrypt

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

Crypto majors chop on the day, Bitcoin holds at $123,000
ZCash soars 35% leading all crypto movers; RAIL jumps 100%
Jack Dorsey’s Block rolls out Bitcoin merchant payments with Square
Luxembourg sovereign wealth fund invests 1% of assets into BTC
Jupiter teams with Ethena to launch JupUSD stablecoin

 Bitcoin vs. Gold: Two ATHs, Two Different Narratives

Both “digital gold” and the original just printed fresh ATHs.

Gold has been the faster horse so far this year – but will that trend continue?

📌 What Happened

Bitcoin broke to a new all-time high on Oct 6, reaching $126,000.

Then just 2 days later, Gold hit a new ATH at $4.070.

That puts gold up a whopping 52% YTD, vs a paltry 32% for Bitcoin.

Each has their own set of drivers, with Bitcoin riding a $5.3B wave of ETF inflows and IBIT rising to the top spot for all ETFs.

While gold continues to benefit from rate-cut bets, safe-haven demand and central banks piling in.

But Bitcoin still pales in size to gold. Gold is sitting at just over $27T in market cap, while Bitcoin is at $2.6T.

That means gold is over 10x Bitcoin’s market cap. And in fact, Gold has added the entire crypto market cap of $4.2T over just the past 3 months.

We’re so early.

🧠 Why It Matters – Gold vs Bitcoin

So which asset has the better setup in October 2025?

Bitcoin

ETF bid is back in force: Spot BTC ETF inflows of $1.2B on Monday were the 2nd highest behind Nov 7 – the Trump pump day. These remain a persistent, rules-driven buyer.
Tightening float: Exchange balances have slid to multi-year lows as coins move off venues, amplifying price impact when new ETF demand hits.
Macro (rate cuts & seasonality): Softer data and rising cut odds propel the Bitcoin bull case, paired with traditional “Uptober” positioning.

Gold

Structural buyers at scale (China). Central banks have been purchasing ~1,000 tonnes/year (near-record pace in ’22–’23) and kept adding this year, with China and the BRICS leading the way
ETF participation returned. Gold-backed ETFs saw strong inflows into the move, reinforcing futures/spot strength and broadening the demand base beyond official sector buying.
Lower real-rate expectations + safety bid. Anticipated Fed cuts, a weaker dollar and macro/political anxiety (including the U.S. shutdown) have helped funnel flows into gold.

The safe bet is to own both.

But being a gambling man myself, I like Bitcoin’s setup more.

Overall the primary driver of both assets is the debasement trade, and that fundamental driver isn’t going away any time soon.

What separates Bitcoin from gold for me personally is the generational wealth transfer that will happen over the coming decades as boomers leave their wealth to millenials and zoomers.

That’s a generation raised in the digital age, and they are much more likely to turn to digital gold (Bitcoin) over traditional.

I like Bitcoin to close the gap over the coming decade significantly and eventually flip. But that’s likely decades away…



🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

Crypto majors are mixed and consolidating; BTC even at $123,000, ETH -2% at $4,380, BNB -2% at $1,285, SOL +1% at $224
ZEC (+38%), XMR (+4%) and ENA (+3%) led top movers
ZEC is up over 140% in the past two weeks on the back of new Grayscale access and support from Naval
The BTC ETFs saw another $440M in net inflows yesterday, keeping their 8-day inflow streak; ETH also kept its 8-day streak with $69M in inflows
Jack Dorsey’s Block rolled out new merchant Bitcoin payments and an integrated wallet, letting businesses accept BTC and convert sales inside Square’s stack
MetaMask added native Hyperliquid swaps in wallet while also signaling a potential Polymarket integration
Luxembourg’s Intergenerational Wealth Fund invested 1% of its holdings into Bitcoin ETFs
Bloomberg deemed Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan youngest self-made billionaire
Coinbase launched staking in New York, enabling ETH, SOL, ATOM and others for previously excluded residents

In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs

In Memes

Memecoin leaders are mostly red; DOGE -4%, Shiba -4%, PEPE -6%, PENGU -5%, BONK -4%, TRUMP -4%, SPX +6%, and FARTCOIN -13%
BNB memes largely cooled off, though BNBHolder ran 67x to $70M and Meme Rush jumped 17x to $18M
Over on Solana, Pumpfun Pepe (PFP) jumped 86% to $5M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

Jupiter teamed with Ethena to launch its native stablecoin JupUSD on Solana
CCP Games announced its new survival MMO EVE Frontier to be fully built on Sui
Coinflow raised $25M to expand stablecoin payments, pitching faster merchant settlement versus legacy processors
Plume acquired Dinero to expand institutional DeFi yields, integrating staking with its RWA platform and transfer-agent status
Football dot Fun announced its NFL product following its success with Soccer
Hyperswap announced its TGE coming October 20

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

NFT leaders were mostly red; Punks even at 48.4 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 9.4, BAYC even at 8.81 ETH; Hypurr’s -1% at 1,248 HYPE
Doodles (+6%) were notable top mover
Punk Strategy had a roller coaster day, dropping to $100M then rebounding to $180M (now back to $140M) after founder Rhynotic and Jack Butcher implemented changes to the strategy protocol buying mechanics
Check Strategy (CHKSTR) debuted, running as high as $5M at peak before settling at $3M ahead of today’s VIBESTR launch
OpenSea expanded into Telegram tokens and NFTs