Global broad money supply surged to a record $144 trillion in December 2025, marking a year-over-year increase of $13.6 trillion or 10.4%. This represents the third consecutive month of accelerating growth, with the total money supply having expanded by 44% (+$44 trillion) since the 2020 pandemic. Historically, such expansive liquidity has supported hard assets, and gold has followed this script, maintaining a resilient upward trajectory despite brief pullbacks.
However, Bitcoin (BTC), often dubbed "digital gold," has exhibited choppier price action and is down roughly 30% since the start of 2024, while gold has climbed 153% over the same period. Jurrien Timmer, Director of Global Macro at Fidelity, attributes this divergence to Bitcoin's dual identity. He explains that gold is a pure "hard money" asset, closely tracking money supply growth. Bitcoin, meanwhile, embodies both a potential hard currency and a high-beta speculative asset.
Timmer's analysis shows that Bitcoin's strongest rallies—such as those in 2017–2018 and 2020–2021—occurred when expanding global liquidity aligned with bullish speculative sentiment in tech stocks, proxied by software and SaaS indices. Conversely, when speculative appetite contracts, as seen in 2022 and currently, the negative sentiment can override the supportive liquidity tailwind. "Right now, we have ample liquidity growth but a bear market in speculation. The result: Bitcoin is languishing while gold and the money supply are rallying," Timmer remarked.
Supporting the shift in demand, crypto-native platforms are seeing increased activity in gold-linked products. Binance launched 24/7 gold futures trading in early January 2026, with cumulative volume approaching $35 billion and weekly averages around $4.7 billion. Concurrently, CryptoQuant data indicates Binance's total portfolio value for major assets like BTC, ETH, and XRP has fallen to approximately $102 billion, its lowest since April 2025, down from about $140 billion in August 2025. This $38 billion decline reflects both lower prices and user withdrawals into self-custody, signaling cautious trader positioning and potentially thinner near-term liquidity for Bitcoin.
