Gold and silver have surged to record highs in recent months, setting modern all-time highs, while Bitcoin has been stuck in a tight range of $84,000-$94,000 since mid-November. In a video posted on X on January 27, Anthony Pompliano argued that the difference is less about a single catalyst than about a shift in demand drivers, market structure, and a modern fight for attention and venture capital.

Pompliano put this separation bluntly. “We have gold up 80% in the last year. Silver is up 250%, copper is up 40% and platinum is up almost 200% over the last 12 months,” he said, before turning to the contrast: “At the same time, Bitcoin is down 16% over the last year.”

According to him, metals do not move like a monolith, but respond to different sources of demand. Gold, he said, benefits from the accumulation of reserves by central banks and from what he described as the “definition of the global economy” in which flows from dollars turn not into other means of payment but into gold.

Silver, on the other hand, focuses less on value positioning and more on industrial appeal. Pompliano pointed to defense equipment, artificial intelligence equipment and autonomous cars as examples of end demand, arguing that “the world is building something again” and that reindustrialization is making silver a direct beneficiary.

In his view, copper and platinum are even purer industrial histories. Copper is driving electrification (electric vehicles, grid construction, renewables) and “significant industrial demand.” He argued that Platinum’s move is due to supply constraints, which describes “very, very low supply,” which creates a market structure that benefits holders. Pompliano also highlighted what he called a rotation in metals, with gold leading the way, then silver, and more recently copper and platinum, a sequence he called “metals mania.”

So why hasn’t Bitcoin joined the race?

Pompliano’s first answer was structural: Wall Street’s adoption is changing who holds Bitcoin and how it is traded. He described a “Bitcoin IPO moment” (referring to Jordy Visser’s theory) in which long-term holders hand over their coins to institutional players.

According to Pompliano, some early Bitcoin holders held Bitcoin precisely because it was “outside the system,” and the migration of the asset into mainstream finance could reduce this cohort’s enthusiasm. He also pointed to public comments from Peter Thiel and others suggesting that Bitcoin’s future may be less “asymmetric” than in its early years.

The second structural change is the proliferation of financial instruments around BTC. “It used to be really difficult to sell Bitcoin. Well, now you can do it in a very simple way,” Pompliano said, arguing that options and shorting change the functioning of the market and dampen volatility. “Bitcoin used to be an 80-vol asset. Now it’s more like a 40-vol asset.” – he added, positioning the compromise as less parabolic growth phases, but also less catastrophic declines.

Pompliano then moved on to narrative demands – specifically, the idea that Bitcoin was treated as a “hedge against chaos.” He argued that recent perceptions of increasing geopolitical stability have reduced the perceived need for such an insurance offering, while central banks with much larger pools of capital continue to express their preference for gold collateral. “It doesn’t seem like there’s as much of a bid for Bitcoin as there is for this insurance security,” he said, emphasizing that he sees it as a matter of flow and narrative rather than loss of utility.

He expressed a similar opinion on inflation hedging, arguing that disinflation has undermined one of Bitcoin’s most effective recent narratives. Citing Trueflation, Pompliano said the metric showed inflation at 1.2%, “150 basis points less than just 90 days ago,” and argued that AI and tariffs are deflationary forces. Unless investors expect inflation to skyrocket, he reasoned, some capital simply won’t reach BTC.

Finally, he argued that Bitcoin is losing mind-sharing and speculative oxygen to artificial intelligence and a broader set of “risk-taking” outlets. “There’s just more competition,” Pompliano said, extending the concept beyond markets to the attention economy, where all assets compete as users open a financial app and decide where to allocate their remaining cash. In this context, Bitcoin is no longer the default high-yield bet for younger participants; competes with AI stocks, prediction markets and sports betting.

Why is Bitcoin lagging while gold, silver, copper and platinum continue to rise?

I describe the forces driving the metals rally, how Wall Street adoption has changed the structure of the Bitcoin market, and why inflation expectations, global stability and artificial intelligence are influencing… pic.twitter.com/VzATl6ZCYi

— Anthony Pompliano 🌪 (@APompliano) January 27, 2026

Pompliano’s final message was that laggards can catch up and that he sees Bitcoin as “more interesting at $87,000 than at $126,000.” But he also warned that lower-volatility and more institutional Bitcoin may require a different temperament from holders. “If you’re really impatient, you’re going to be disappointed. You’re going to get shaken off,” he said, arguing that trading is becoming more like a waiting game rather than a one-year sprint.

At the time of publication, the price of BTC was $88,131.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com