When will Bitcoin catch up with Gold in capitalization?

[KryptoBull]

We have all heard that Bitcoin is digital gold, especially in the task of protecting assets during the inflation wave of 2021-2023^[1], Bitcoin is even expected to become a new standard for assets in the future^[2]. We have a lot of articles comparing Bitcoin with Gold, but they seem to belong to different worlds: Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, and Gold is a precious metal commodity^[3].

I believe in the potential and future of Bitcoin, but I'm quite curious about the possibility that Bitcoin can replace Gold or at least catch up with Gold in capitalization.

According to statistical data, Gold's current capitalization is 13,474T USD, while Bitcoin's capitalization is 957.74B USD, only 7.1% of Gold's capitalization^[4]. This means that assuming the Gold price remains unchanged, the Bitcoin price needs to increase by 14 times and 1BTC = 678K USD to catch up with Gold.

Obviously, this is no easy task in the upcoming cycle, even in PlanB's most optimistic prediction, 1BTC = 500K USD^[5].

Looking at the BTC price chart, we see that the slope of the price chart gradually decreases with each cycle, confirming a weakening in price momentum, which is the opposite of what we can see on the DJIA chart. Assuming BTC will continue to fluctuate at its current rate of price growth, $678K USD will not arrive before 2028, meaning we cannot see BTC triumph over Gold before 2028. I think Bitcoin will catch up and surpass Gold in 3-4 more cycles, meaning around 2035-2040.

Of course this is just the simplest analysis I can present on a price chart, assuming the Gold price remains unchanged in the future. In fact, when inflation cannot be controlled, I believe that Gold price will continue to increase strongly in the future.

I personally do not expect that Bitcoin will surpass Gold, because by then, the BTC price will be too high and cause BTC to lose a lot of value in payments, maybe then BTC will only be in reserve account of governments.

I just want to see Bitcoin surpass top 2 Microsoft ~ cap 3,026T USD, at that time 1 BTC = 154K USD.

I want to know your opinion:

• Do you think Bitcoin has any chance of catching up and then surpassing Gold in capitalization?
• If so, when in the future might that event take place?
• If this happens, will it be a good thing for Bitcoin?

References:
[1] GrayScale: October 2023: Rising demand for Bitcoin as Digital Gold
[2] ‘The Bitcoin Standard’: A review
[3] Gold vs. Bitcoin: Which Is Better?
[4] Top Assets by Market Cap
[5] Bitcoin Will be Scarcer Than Gold After Halving, $500K BTC Price Predicted
Note:

• My opinion was posted first in that topic, on Bitcointalk
• I leave the source link to avoid plagiarism accusation.
• I excluded/ included minor things from an original thread ^{if necessary}.

[Lucius]

They say "never say never", but I don't think that will happen for a very long time (if it ever does). Gold has been present among people for thousands of years and most people have the perception that it is really valuable, and they have great confidence in it. In addition, gold has many applications in today's society, whether it is jewelry, gold bars or coins, it is used in the production of IT components and for decoration in the confectionery industry.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is a relatively new thing, and given that it exists only in digital form, it mainly attracts the younger population who mostly perceive it as a way to get rich quickly and some kind of magical internet money.

Also, most politicians and influential people in the world have a very bad or slightly less bad opinion about Bitcoin, which affects a lot of people who fall under their influence. In my opinion, this is a serious obstacle for Bitcoin to become something common, because most people still blindly listen to what they are told every day.

I also think that it is completely wrong to say that Bitcoin is some kind of digital gold and that it was invented by those who want to turn Bitcoin into what it really is not. Bitcoin was conceived as a decentralized cryptocurrency, but unfortunately they turned it into something completely different.

[MrSpasybo]

• Do you think Bitcoin has any chance of catching up and then surpassing Gold in capitalization?
• If so, when in the future might that event take place?
• If this happens, will it be a good thing for Bitcoin?

I think it will take a long time for BTC to outperform gold in terms of capitalization, because gold has been a reserve asset with great value for thousands of years, recognized by the whole world. Meanwhile, BTC is still too young, requiring approval and infrastructure conditions to be widely deployed and applied. When BTC increases in price, gold will also increase in price and continue to widen the gap, it will be difficult for BTC to approach or surpass gold, unless gold has some problem causing the price to collapse. If this happens, the economy will probably be in chaos and BTC will also be extremely negatively affected 

As you said, I also hope that BTC price will rise to ~$150K in 2025 to be able to compete for 2nd or 3rd place with Apple and Microsoft!

[TomPluz]

I believe in the potential and future of Bitcoin, but I'm quite curious about the possibility that Bitcoin can replace Gold or at least catch up with Gold in capitalization. According to statistical data, Gold's current capitalization is 13,474T USD, while Bitcoin's capitalization is 957.74B USD, only 7.1% of Gold's capitalization^[4]. This means that assuming the Gold price remains unchanged, the Bitcoin price needs to increase by 14 times and 1BTC = 678K USD to catch up with Gold.

One, I don't believe that eventually Bitcoin will be replacing gold as they are assets which are so different in nature though their use-cases can sometimes be intertwined being called both as "safe haven" especially in countries where there is a run-away inflation or even experiencing some cataclysmic conflicts. What can happen is that both assets can peacefully co-exist and this is good because investors would now have more choices to select where they would lay down their money or wealth for future use. Now, would it be possible that Bitcoin would be equal with gold in terms of capitalization? Yes, that would be possible given the attention that Bitcoin is right now getting but this, of course, can be taking time and there is no magic formula in here. Remember some "experts" telling us that one day 1 BTC can be a million US dollar? Maybe that can be time when Bitcoin has become the new gold. These days, the global economy is facing many uncertainties and people must protect their assets with buying gold, silver and Bitcoin as what the popular Robert Kiyosaki is telling his audience. Only time will tell when things will happen...so let's cross our fingers and wish upon a star!

[Peter90]

According to statistical data, Gold's current capitalization is 13,474T USD, while Bitcoin's capitalization is 957.74B USD, only 7.1% of Gold's capitalization

If you mention gold, you get my attention 

Capitalization. I can't see how companiesmarketcap.com calculate gold's capitalization.
Usually capitalization = value of 1 unit x number of units in circulation.

In case of gold, it's not so easy, isn't it.
What do they consider as units in circulation? All gold above ground? so jewellery too? gold teeth? gold within industrial products? or just monetary gold (coins and bars)?
One could say, we should consider only monetary gold! Ok, but how about the gold bracelet of that Indian woman. Shouldn't it be considered as gold investment i.e. monetary gold? ... because have no doubt, that's how that woman and her family consider it!

The second problem is, how do you know how much tons of monetary gold are out there? (This is the fundamental problem for gold market analysts.)
On one hand, there are gold stocks which are not recorded: gold buried some place, or transacting on the black market. No financial records.
On the other hand, those gold ETFs... those gold-backed stablecoins... those Central Banks and their never audited gold reserves... how much is really there?
How much do those financial records correspond to reality?

I wanted only to point out that that gold market cap figure - 13,474T USD - could be completely wrong.
Also other sources could mention completely different capitalization figures.

[Charles-Tim]

1. Do you think Bitcoin has any chance of catching up and then surpassing Gold in capitalization?

No one knows but it is possible. Not worth to talk about this right now. It is not going to be easy because even as the price of gold is not that increasing, its marketcap has always been increasing so much in long term. It is now worth $13.452 trillion when bitcoin market is still at $1 billion.

2. If so, when in the future might that event take place?

No one knows what the future is.

3 If this happens, will it be a good thing for Bitcoin?

It is just like asking if watering the flower planted on a fertile soil will germinate. Definitely, it would be a good thing for bitcoin. It means increasing adoption.

[Hamza2424]

Bitcoin vs. gold is an interesting topic in any direction whether it's the attributes comparison or the future speculation for the capital race, TBH for now BTC is not a head-on competitor of Gold but in a few years BTC has the potential to even surpass Gold in capital race, I'm expecting Bitcoin to be on 2nd ranking in the capitalization on the list.

3rd or 2nd spot is not gonna be a tough competition for Bitcoin as far as I'm expecting BTC can drive $4T capital or $3.5T capital in this cycle. hehe may sound unrealistic but it is realistic.

[Captain Corporate]

I would say at least one more four year cycle, maybe two. That way, in 2025 we will peak, which should be over 100k easily, maaaaybe we will get to 200k, not sure. So on the next cycle we will get to 300k-400k range or at least we should, doubling the previous ATH is not that hard, usually happens. Could it be 500k then? Maybe, but if not then one more cycle should help. Which means that we are going to be somewhere around that level in 4 to 8 years. This is of course just a prediction and I could very well be wrong as well, I am not sure if it will work out that way or not, I am just making this up, its just a guess.

[Stompix]

There is one thing in those long predictions, that there is still 20% of gold unmined and viable to mine at current prices and only 7% of coins left.
With 3000 tons mined each year that tot al market cap will favor gold for the next decade as the supply of coins will grow by only 0.8% and 0.4% while averaging 1.5% for gold.

So even if the gold price will be stable and linear in 10 years the marketcap will still increase by 15%, bitcoin won't do even half of that.

I just want to see Bitcoin surpass top 2 Microsoft ~ cap 3,026T USD, at that time 1 BTC = 154K USD.

What if Microsoft shares will dump tomorrow by 10% because of bad earnings or some competitor or god knows what? 

[Faisal2202]

Do you think Bitcoin has any chance of catching up and then surpassing Gold in capitalization?

You shared good data, but the same type of topic was made on BTT as well, and I also shared my idea there, but the data here is a little more effective. Well, my answer is BTC will surpass gold but not even in the upcoming 3 to 4 halving. Because BTC needs a lot of time, as Gold is not for a few hundred years in the market. And you mentioned BTC is a cryptocurrency while Gold is a commodity, I wanted to say, that BTC is also declared a commodity by the SEC. That's why we are seeing BTC ETFs.

If so, when in the future might that event take place?

I think that might take after 10 havlings, max, But still BTC will take time to compete with Gold M.Cap.

If this happens, will it be a good thing for Bitcoin?

Of course it will be a good thing for BTC, people would be making fortune from BTC, but it will not be good for BTC usage, but don't worry, there are L2 projects in the market like SatoshiVM and Soveryn working on using BTC with fee in cents.

[UNIVERSE]

Wow, the competition between gold and Bitcoin is quite tight. However, if you look at the global market cap, Godl is still the winner. Because we already understand how valuable this object is.

Currently Gold is still number 1 in global market cap. with a market cap of $13,601 T
Meanwhile, Bitcoin is in 10th place with a market cap of 1,020 T.
check here:
https://companiesmarketcap.com/assets-by-market-cap/

So we can see that there is a very big difference between the two.

[aiviaa485]

I also found information that is useful for this hat, and maybe this iFnormation has been conveyed by other members but according to me infinite market cap looks easier to understand.
I see the comparison of gold and bitcoin is quite far between 1 trillion USD and 13 trillion USD. Means there are 12 trillion USD that must be achieved by Bitcoin to be the same as the Marketcap of gold.

Btw, the marketcap from Tesla has been passed by Bitcoin and this surprised me because I think I am Bitcoin this marketcap is far below Tesla, but the facts say differently.

[Peter90]

According to statistical data, Gold's current capitalization is 13,474T USD, while Bitcoin's capitalization is 957.74B USD, only 7.1% of Gold's capitalization

Hi KB
I explained above the problem with market cap: the $13T is just a guess game

Much better comparing gold and BTC daily average trade volume
The advantage is that for both gold and BTC only recorded trades on exchanges are compared, so the comparison makes much more sense.


According to CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko yesterday BTC trading volume has been $20B
According to the World Gold Council gold's average trading volume in 2023 was $130B




So instead of 13400 vs. 950 it makes more sense to speak of 130 vs. 20
If yesterday was an average day re BTC trading volume, BTC trading volume = 15% of gold trading volume

In the graphic above, BTC takes the same place of German Bunds

[Freemind]

If we think linearly and mathematically, it would take more than 13 decades for Bitcoin to reach the capitalization of gold, since Bitcoin appeared just over a decade ago and the total capitalization of gold is just over 13 times larger. But I don't think that way of thinking can be applied in this case, or at least not in a linear way.

There are many factors that can change, and although we know that the supply of Bitcoin is 21 million coins of which almost 2 million could be considered lost, the value of gold could plummet at any time and the time required would be much less. I've never been a big fan of predictions, but I think in this case you can't use any metric to know when Bitcoin will reach or surpass the capitalization of gold.

[Gladitorcomeback]

If we think linearly and mathematically, it would take more than 13 decades for Bitcoin to reach the capitalization of gold, since Bitcoin appeared just over a decade ago and the total capitalization of gold is just over 13 times larger. But I don't think that way of thinking can be applied in this case, or at least not in a linear way.

Gold is adopted everywhere in the world and known as real money One country economics stats could ne judged through total value of gold in the country. Gold history is very old and it's not easy to surpass in one decade or even one century.

Currently BTC is on the number 10 rank in the world assets in term of marketcap and no 5 in the currencies rank. I think It is big achievement for any asset/currency to achieve this goal in short time. I think if adoption continue similarly then BTC will surpass gold before the total supply minted i.e 2141 AD