Between Wednesday and Thursday, Bitcoin fell about 10%, retesting $81,000 for the first time in over two months. On Friday, the 2‑month options delta skew jumped to 17% and US‑listed spot BTC ETFs posted $2.7 billion in net outflows since Jan. 16, increasing the odds of a break under $80,000. Traders are reassessing leverage and key support.

Bitcoin was originally conceived as a "digital gold" style store of value designed to benefit from de-dollarisation and inflation, but recent market action shows investors favouring physical metals instead. Over roughly the past year, gold has climbed about 55% and silver around 150%, while BTC has traded largely sideways. Analysts Himanshu Sinha and Doctor Profit argue that central bank gold demand and the gold/BTC ratio both suggest gold may keep outperforming and that Bitcoin is currently behaving more like a speculative risk asset.

Doctor Profit reiterated on 2026-01-?? that Bitcoin’s gold ratio pattern is nearing the 0.11 BTC-per-ounce level, which previously signaled market bottoms near $50,000 to $60,000. Michael van de Poppe countered that Bitcoin’s RSI versus gold and a depressed Z-Score hint at a looming rotation back into BTC despite the coin trading at $83,435 after 2.2% daily and 7% weekly losses.

Norway's sovereign wealth fund lifted its indirect exposure to Bitcoin by 149%, reaching 9,573 BTC by 2025 through positions in publicly traded companies. The fund does not hold Bitcoin directly, relying instead on stakes in firms such as MicroStrategy, Coinbase, MARA, and Block. A rise of this scale likely reflects portfolio construction choices rather than a direct bet on BTC.

On Jan. 30, 2026, analyst Liam 'Akiba' Wright updated his medium-term Bitcoin bear thesis calling for a potential move toward $49,000, noting that key network and flow metrics look more stressed than when he first outlined it in November. While Bitcoin trades in the low $80,000s, he points to extremely weak fee contribution to miner revenue, negative year-to-date ETF flows exceeding $1 billion, and miners pivoting into AI and HPC hosting as signs of underlying fragility. Wright argues that these structural pressures are building tension beneath the price and could act as a liquidity magnet if Bitcoin eventually drops into the high-$40,000 zone.

On January 30, 2026, CryptoQuant reported that short-term Bitcoin holders moved about 35,100 BTC to exchanges within 24 hours while sitting on unrealized losses. The firm noted this inflow often reflects market stress and near-term sell pressure, though a transfer does not necessarily mean the coins were immediately sold.

In late January 2026, silver and Bitcoin have moved in sharply different directions, with silver briefly topping $121 per ounce before retreating and Bitcoin sliding toward $82,800. Silver remains up about 25% over the past month and more than 200% over the past year amid falling COMEX inventories and industrial demand, while Bitcoin trades over 34% below its October peak above $126,000 as tighter Federal Reserve expectations and broader risk-off sentiment pressure crypto markets.

On January 30, 2026, Anthony Scaramucci urged Bitcoin holders to "get ready" after BTC gained more than 10% against gold earlier that day. Gold fell to an intraday low of $4,683 and silver dropped over 30% in a single day, while Scaramucci has previously said he would like Bitcoin to reach $150,000.