Bitcoin stays on the sidelines even as gold breaks through a record $5,400…divergence widens after Powell remarks

After remarks by Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Jerome Powell, gold prices refreshed record highs, while Bitcoin maintained a constrained range, underscoring a clear divergence. As macro uncertainty persists, the temperature gap between traditional safe havens and crypto assets is coming back into focus.

According to CoinDesk on the 29th (local time), international gold prices on the day topped $5,400 per ounce to set an all-time high. In a press conference held immediately after the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, Chair Powell drew a line against overinterpreting the surge in precious metals as a macroeconomic signal, but buying interest in gold strengthened instead.

Regarding the rise in gold and silver prices, Powell said, "You shouldn't read too much into it macroeconomically," adding, "The claim that there is a problem with the Fed's credibility is not true." He emphasized that "if you look at inflation expectations, the Fed's credibility is where it needs to be."

Market reaction, however, differed. Gold, along with silver and platinum, rose in tandem, spreading buying across the precious-metals complex. In particular, gold—whose market capitalization is about $40 trillion—led the rally, in a sign that demand for safe-haven assets has re-emerged.

By contrast, Bitcoin traded in a narrow band around $89,000, ending the day little changed. Even after the Fed decided to hold its policy rate steady, directionality remained unclear, and major crypto assets such as Ethereum showed a similar pattern.

The market is also again questioning Bitcoin's role as "digital gold." James Harris, CEO of Tesseract Group, said, "In the current market environment, crypto assets are underperforming the assets they were originally touted as substitutes for," and that "as geopolitical and fiscal risks are reassessed, gold is regaining relative market share versus Bitcoin."

Indeed, over the past year gold prices have risen more than 90%, while Bitcoin has posted a relatively limited move over the same period. Even under the same macro backdrop of a weaker dollar and heightened geopolitical tensions, the two assets have diverged, putting shifts in the market's asset-preference structure back on test.