CHART: Gold gained twice the market cap of BTC in three days

On Monday evening, gold was trading at $​​5,050 per ounce. By Wednesday evening, it hit $5,600. In other words, the value of all above-ground gold increased $3.7 trillion within 72 hours.

Specifically, a popular estimate of gold’s market capitalization rose 10% to $39 trillion between 7pm Sunday to 7pm Wednesday New York time prior to gold hitting $5,600 per ounce.

The rally was impressive not only in speed and percentage, but also due to gold’s substantial size. It’s one thing, after all, for a small lumberyard to double its stockpile. It’s quite another thing for every lumberyard in the country to double their stockpiles.

Despite being one of the most valuable assets on Earth, gold’s three day rally — just the rally itself — was worth twice the entire $1.8 trillion market cap of bitcoin ($BTC).

Gold’s rally also eclipsed the entire $3 trillion market cap of every crypto asset tracked by CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko.

Over the past 12 months, no top 10 crypto asset is close to the return of any precious metal.

Read more: Crypto traders finally get gold — at all-time highs

$BTC fails to rival gold this year

The precious metals rally has left crypto in the dust.

Platinum has nearly tripled in price over the past 12 months. Over the same time period, the market cap of all crypto assets declined 15%.

Silver — which was smaller than $BTC as recently as spring 2025 — has rallied 277% in the past 12 months and is now quadruple the size of $BTC.

Copper has rallied 47% over the past 12 months, while palladium is up 113%.

Over the same time period, no top 10 crypto asset is anywhere close to competing with the return of any precious metal.

The best performing top 10 digital asset is BNB which has rallied about 34% since last year after Donald Trump pardoned its founder, Changpeng Zhao.