Bitcoin Didn’t ‘Fail’ Digital Gold: Markets Misread The Thesis, Galaxy’s Thorn Says
Galaxy Digital head of analysis Alex Thorn is pushing again on a rising critique that Bitcoin has “failed” its digital gold promise, arguing that the label was all the time about BTC’s financial properties, not a assure it might commerce like bullion in each macro regime.
In a post on X, Thorn stated Bitcoin’s “failure to trade like gold as a part of ‘the debasement commerce’ since Sep. ‘25’ broken its narrative with new entrants,” however framed that disappointment as a class error. “When bitcoiners stated ‘digital gold’ they have been describing its basic properties, not that it’s high beta to gold at the moment,” he wrote, including: “it comes from Satoshi.”
To make the purpose, Thorn shared a screenshot of a 2010 Bitcointalk alternate wherein Satoshi Nakamoto provided a thought experiment about cash rising from shortage plus transferability.
“Imagine there was a base steel as scarce as gold however with the next properties: boring gray in color; not an excellent conductor of electrical energy; not notably robust, however not ductile or simply malleable both; not helpful for any sensible or decorative objective,” Satoshi wrote. “And one particular, magical property: may be transported over a communications channel. If it one way or the other acquired any worth in any respect for no matter motive, then anybody desirous to switch wealth over an extended distance might purchase some, transmit it, and have the recipient promote it.”
Thorn’s framing is that the “digital gold” analogy is rooted in that passage: Bitcoin resembles a scarce commodity in key financial traits, whereas including a function that bodily metals can not match, native world portability over communications rails.
Bitcoin’s ‘Digital Gold’ Narrative As A Gap Trade
Thorn argued Satoshi’s level wasn’t that the market should value Bitcoin in tight relation to gold always, however that BTC’s structural attributes can help a gold-like financial position if the market ultimately converges on that valuation. In Thorn’s telling, the funding thesis is the unfold between “basic gold-like properties” and the market’s willingness to cost Bitcoin alongside gold and the chance of that unfold narrowing.
He described Bitcoin’s underlying profile in phrases generally cited by long-term holders: shortage and sturdiness, with further financial traits akin to divisibility and self-sovereignty, then pointed to transferability because the differentiator that makes the analogy greater than branding. The “alpha,” on this framework, is just not short-term co-movement with bullion, however the chance that the market finally costs BTC extra like a financial steel.
The alternate drew settlement from 10T Holdings founder Dan Tapiero, who replied: “Well stated.” Tapiero additionally advised the present temper round Bitcoin seems like a well-known cycle reset: “So a lot worry on the market on btc. Like the great ol days once more.”
Not everybody accepted the premise. One consumer responded, “It by no means traded like gold. Just as a result of individuals branded it like gold doesn’t imply it’s true.” Thorn replied: “that’s actually what i’m saying within the put up,” underscoring that his argument is exactly that “digital gold” was by no means a promise of fixed gold-like buying and selling habits.
Thorn additionally downplayed the concept something materials has modified not too long ago in Bitcoin itself. “Basically nothing has modified about bitcoin within the final 5 months,” he wrote, including that “if something the basics are much more interesting.”
At press time, BTC traded at $68,048.