## Gold and silver face historic competition: how will bitcoin position itself in 2026?

Recent news from the precious metals market reveal an intriguing outlook on the relative performance of traditional assets versus cryptocurrencies. From an accumulated return perspective, the numbers speak for themselves: over the past ten years, bitcoin has achieved an extraordinary performance of approximately 27,701%, far surpassing both gold (283%) and silver (405%).

Analyst Adam Livingston was one of the first to highlight these comparative figures since 2015, describing the digital asset as "superior" in terms of return on investment. However, this statement sparked immediate debate within the financial community. Peter Schiff, a well-known traditional gold advocate, questioned the methodology of the analysis and argued that if only the performance of the last four years is considered, the narrative changes significantly, suggesting that bitcoin's era of dominance may have already come to an end.

Faced with these opposing positions, Matt Golliher of Orange Horizon Wealth offered a different perspective. He pointed out that precious metals like gold and silver respond to classic economic dynamics: when prices rise, supply tends to expand toward production costs, creating a natural balance. Bitcoin, on the other hand, operates under a completely different logic thanks to its fixed and immutable supply, which eliminates this market correction mechanism.

The recent performance of 2025 amplified these differences. Gold reached historic highs close to $4,533 per ounce, while silver approached $80. Bitcoin, in contrast, experienced relative stagnation during the same period. Currently, in 2026, the cryptocurrency registers a negative variation of 4.29% over the past year, reflecting volatility compared to the stability of precious metals.

Arthur Hayes analyzes these movements from a macroeconomic perspective, identifying that the Federal Reserve's monetary expansion combined with the weakening of the US dollar (which fell nearly 10% during 2025, its worst performance in a decade) could favor both traditional scarce assets and bitcoin in the long term. This convergence of factors creates an environment where gold, silver, and cryptocurrencies could act as complementary hedges against monetary uncertainty.