Cathie Wood Bets Bitcoin (BTC) Decouples From Gold on 0.1 Correlation

Cathie Wood's Case Against Gold

Ark Invest chief Cathie Wood renewed her case against gold on Monday, November 9, saying the metal is headed lower while Bitcoin (BTC) trades essentially independent of it. The argument rests on one statistic: since 2019, the correlation coefficient between the two assets reads just 0.1, a value that in statistical terms describes near-total independence, where a reading of 1 would mean perfectly synchronized moves. The statement, laid out in a post on X, is blunt: “Gold will fall. There is no correlation between Bitcoin and gold since 2019. The correlation coefficient is only 0.1.” Wood added that she expects Bitcoin to keep outperforming the metal because it “moves to its own beat,” a framing familiar to adherents of Bitcoin maximalism, who have long treated the asset as a category of one. The timing is pointed. On Monday gold rallied 1.7% to close at $4,141.14 an ounce as oil slipped and the dollar weakened, while the Bitcoin price broke under $75,000 and touched $73,700. Derivatives data shows more than $1 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated in that drop, a broad deleveraging flush rather than the work of a single whale. The simultaneous move, gold up and Bitcoin (BTC) down, is the pattern her correlation claim has to explain. Because neither asset yields anything, the near-term pressure on both comes from the same direction: traders have already priced a December rate hike from the Federal Reserve, the policy line Fed's Waller backs, and Tuesday's US consumer price index report is the next catalyst. A hot inflation print would test Wood's thesis from the other side, since higher rates weigh on gold and Bitcoin alike. Bitcoin enters that test in weak technical shape, having closed below its 50-week moving average after seven straight weekly closes above it.

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September's Forecast and Schiff's Pushback

Monday's statement was not a new position. In September, on Ark Invest's In The Know series, Wood told viewers Bitcoin (BTC) still had “a long way to go” against gold and described it as “both a safe haven and a risk asset.” At the time Bitcoin traded near $78,008 and spot gold hovered around $4,377 an ounce; over the prior year gold had gained 20% while Bitcoin lost 28%. The relative picture has barely shifted since. With Bitcoin changing hands near $74,700 against gold at $4,141, one coin buys about 18.1 ounces of gold, versus roughly 17.8 ounces in mid-September. Gold's own year has been brutal. The metal peaked at a record $5,110.50 on January 26, then slid about 22% to roughly $3,986 by October 23. Neither asset has rewarded its holders in 2026: figures shared by Creative Planning's Charlie Bilello put Bitcoin down 7.3% and gold down 7.5% through the end of last month, the two worst-performing major assets of the year. HSBC has warned that gold is losing its status as a short-term volatility hedge because leveraged traders are forced to sell the metal when equities fall, though the bank remains constructive over the long run on central bank buying and ETF inflows. The sharpest pushback came from the gold camp itself. Long-time bull Peter Schiff, behind a recent sell call below $75,000, noted that since the midterm election US stocks have been essentially flat while Bitcoin fell more than 4% and gold rose more than 5%, with silver up nearly 7% and gold mining shares up more than 18%. “This is a preview of what's to come,” Schiff wrote on X. The weekly close at $74,900 landed below the 52-week average, compounding the breakdown after seven consecutive weeks above the 50-week line.

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Our reading: Wood's case is about independence, not immediate direction, and the tape supports only a narrow version of it. A 0.1 coefficient measured since 2019 says little about this quarter's flows, and the gold ratio has moved only from 17.8 to 18.1 ounces since mid-September, hardly a live decoupling. For the wider Bitcoin market, the deciding trade is the relative one, and it has been flat. From here the call matters only if Bitcoin holds value while gold gives ground, with Tuesday's CPI report and the priced December hike as the first test. Investors with a long HODL horizon still face the September framing of a safe haven and a risk asset in one instrument, and anyone watching Bitcoin technical analysis wants the 50-week average reclaimed before that print.