Bitcoin and gold both fell during the latest market sell-off, but Fidelity's Director of Global Macro, Jurrien Timmer, says one of them has handled the pressure better. In his view, Bitcoin's performance measured against gold makes it the more attractive of the two right now.

His reasoning rests on relative strength rather than absolute price. Timmer is not claiming that Bitcoin rose while gold fell. Both assets declined during the sell-off, which his research places around November 6-7. Instead, he is watching the ratio between the two assets, and on that measure Bitcoin has held up well.

What Timmer Is Watching

At its low point in this cycle, one Bitcoin bought approximately 12 ounces of gold. It now buys roughly 21 ounces, a recovery that has also carried Bitcoin above the recent trading range it held against gold. For technical analysts, a break of that kind often signals a change in leadership between two competing assets.

Timmer has tracked these shifts closely. He has documented several rotations of speculative capital between Bitcoin and gold since late 2025. Those rotations accelerated after Bitcoin peaked close to $126,000 in 2025 and gold's own momentum began to fade.

The ETF Scoreboard

Timmer's preference lines up with where institutional money has been flowing. Since 2024, spot Bitcoin ETFs — funds that hold the cryptocurrency directly — have attracted nearly $55 billion in inflows. Gold and silver exchange-traded products, which give investors tradable exposure to the metals themselves, have drawn around $29 billion over the same stretch, putting Bitcoin funds at roughly double the haul of the precious metals products.

Neither Asset Is Acting Like a Safe Haven

Despite the tilt toward Bitcoin, neither asset is behaving like a traditional safe haven. Both Bitcoin and gold have recently shown a correlation of 60-70% with the S&P 500, meaning the two have tended to fall alongside stocks during market weakness.

Timmer has not abandoned gold entirely. He continues to endorse both assets as tools for diversifying against monetary and fiscal instability. His current lean toward Bitcoin reflects near-term prospects — a tactical tilt rather than a declaration that gold has lost its place in a portfolio.

Why the Bitcoin-Gold Ratio Matters

The Bitcoin-to-gold ratio is a useful lens for investors because it strips out the noise of the dollar and shows how two competing hedges stack up against each other directly. The recovery from about 12 ounces to about 21 ounces suggests the pendulum has swung back toward Bitcoin, at least for now. Timmer's own record of documented rotations, however, is a reminder that this pendulum has swung several times recently — making the staying power of this latest break the open question for observers tracking the two assets.

What This Means for Investors

The most immediate takeaway is that a prominent Fidelity strategist sees Bitcoin holding its ground better than gold under pressure. The ETF flow data supports the idea that institutions are already leaning the same way: a gap of nearly $55 billion versus around $29 billion is hard to dismiss as a rounding error.

Yet the high correlation with equities is a real consideration. If both assets keep tracking the S&P 500 at 60-70%, their value as diversifiers shrinks during broad market drawdowns. Timmer's position sits somewhere in the middle — he holds both as hedges against monetary and fiscal turbulence while tilting toward the one showing better relative strength.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen.