Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee said gold’s explosive rise in 2025 is diverting investors’ attention away from Bitcoin and Ethereum. The comments come as gold prices have topped $2,800 an ounce, while Bitcoin and Ethereum are trading sideways after months of ETF hype. Zooming out, this fits a familiar pattern: when fear rises, money stays in assets that feel boring but safe.
To the average investor, this explains why cryptocurrency prices feel stagnant even for big-name companies offering ETFs. Capital has not disappeared. It has moved.
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Gold is like a financial bunker. When inflation remains high or wars dominate the headlines, investors buy gold because it has retained its value for thousands of years. This year, that instinct came into full play, with gold ETFs attracting more than $10 billion in the first half of 2025.
Bitcoin is often called “digital gold,” but it still trades like a risk asset in tense moments. When fear intensifies, large funds are the first to cut cryptocurrencies and add gold. This shift helps explain why gold is hitting new highs while Bitcoin is struggling to gain traction.
Tom Lee is the co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors and is known for predicting Bitcoin’s 2021 bull run in advance. He also supports the idea of a spot Bitcoin ETF being approved long before regulators agree. But personally, I don’t listen to him because he sometimes gives unrealistic goals.
Although this record gives weight to his larger perspective. When Lee said gold was “sucking the oxygen out of the room,” he meant that large institutions had limited cash. They select one deal at a time.
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In the short term, gold’s strength may limit cryptocurrency gains. Money holding gold ETFs is not money chasing a Bitcoin or Ethereum breakout. This pressure manifests itself in slow price action and sharp pullbacks on bad news.
In the long term, things look different. Bitcoin and Ethereum are now regulated ETFs from the likes of BlackRock and Fidelity. Even after the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade unlocked staking tokens, the launch of products like the iShares Ethereum Trust has made cryptocurrencies easier to buy than ever before.
This setting is very important. When fear subsides, capital tends to move back into assets with higher upside potential. This rotation has driven past crypto rallies following gold-led risk-off phases.
(Source: BTCUSD/TradingView)
Gold’s rise today does not mean Bitcoin’s failure. This means investors now want stability. Cryptocurrencies remain more volatile, and that volatility goes both ways.
