For decades, gold has been the wise grandfather of finance: slow, reliable, immune to stock market swings and investor panic. While stocks rose and fell like rollercoasters, the precious metal remained unmoved, a silent guardian of wealth. But something has changed. And it’s not minor. According to a report by economist Robin Brooks, gold is starting to behave like bitcoin. And here’s my concern: if that’s true, have we lost the last true safe-haven asset?
The evidence Brooks presents is, to say the least, unsettling. For over a decade, between 2011 and most of 2025, the correlation between gold and the S&P 500 was practically non-existent. That was precisely what made gold a perfect diversification tool: when stocks fell, gold did not necessarily follow the same trend. However, in recent months — especially during the geopolitical tensions of 2026 — that correlation has surged to unprecedented levels. Gold no longer dances to the tune of real interest rates or money supply; now it seems to move to the rhythm of retail investor fear and euphoria, just like bitcoin.
And this is where the matter gets uncomfortable for the most staunch defenders of the precious metal, such as Peter Schiff. The well-known gold bug and relentless bitcoin critic has spent much of 2026 warning that the leading cryptocurrency will fall below $20,000, that Michael Saylor is ruining Strategy with $12 billion in unrealized losses, and that gold is the only asset of “true value and safety.” But reality seems to be mocking him. Because if gold starts acting like Bitcoin, Schiff not only loses his main argument for attacking cryptocurrencies, but he also ends up without a truly safe asset.
Of course, not all analysts share Brooks’ pessimism. Daniel Arráez, an economist specializing in Bitcoin, offers an alternative and, in my opinion, more nuanced interpretation. According to Arráez, the fact that gold and Bitcoin move in the same direction does not necessarily mean gold has lost its essence. It could simply be that both assets are responding to the same macroeconomic factors: soaring debt, uncontrolled monetary expansion, and distrust of central banks. In that scenario, both gold and bitcoin would be thermometers of the same fire, not two assets that have “contaminated” each other.
Even analysts at JPMorgan seem to lean toward this more moderate view, talking about the “debasement trade” as the common factor that has lifted both the metal and the cryptocurrency. But I ask myself: isn’t that very correlation precisely what defines a risk asset? If gold rises when the stock market rises and falls when the stock market falls, then how is it different from yet another tech stock? The essence of a safe haven is not just preserving value, but doing so independently of the rest of the market. And if that independence has been lost, even temporarily, gold is no longer what it used to be.
What worries me most is not gold itself, but what this change in behavior reveals about today’s markets. The growing participation of retail investors, who react with panic or euphoria in a matter of minutes, is turning centuries-old assets into volatile playthings. Gold is no longer just for central banks and patient pension funds. Now it is also for traders who look at their phones every five seconds and follow TikTok trends. And when that type of investor enters a market, volatility and correlation with other risk assets skyrocket.
I think Brooks is right about one thing: gold is changing. But perhaps his conclusion — that it has lost its essence — is too hasty. It’s possible we are facing a temporary phenomenon, an anomaly caused by an unprecedented macroeconomic environment. However, it’s also possible that we have entered a new era where pure safe-haven assets no longer exist. An era where everything, absolutely everything, is correlated with fear and liquidity. And if that is the case, the question is no longer whether gold looks like bitcoin, but whether we can afford to call a “safe haven” something that moves just like everything else.
