- The Warmup by Kaizen
- Posts
- Bitcoin Is Losing to Gold and Big Tech
Bitcoin Is Losing to Gold and Big Tech
PLUS: Money Is Flowing Into Crypto Infrastructure
Welcome back to The Warmup.
Portfolio down 90%, but I’m still walking into the room like I’ve got insider alpha.
Here’s what we’re watching:
Market Snapshot
BTC in Context: Bitcoin vs Gold vs Equities
ETH Trendline Continuation Play
Money Is Flowing Into Crypto Infrastructure
Market: Risk-on across the board as crypto and equities push higher, VIX drops sharply, and gold rallies alongside a stable dollar.
BTC in Context: Bitcoin vs Gold vs Equities
What’s going on:
Bitcoin’s recent weakness looks very different when you zoom out and compare it to Bitcoin’s peers instead of just the dollar.
Since late 2022, BTC has made multiple new all-time highs in USD terms, but it failed to make a new high versus gold.
The reason wasn’t just BTC volatility, it was gold’s strength. Gold surged from roughly $3,350 in mid-2025 to over $5,000 by early 2026, while BTC rolled over.
As a result, the BTC-to-gold ratio broke down sharply, falling from a long-held range and signaling relative underperformance.
On a market-cap basis, BTC has also slipped.
As of mid-February, it’s the 13th-largest asset globally, down from 8th at the end of 2025. Year-over-year, BTC is the worst performer among top global assets, while silver has surged and major equities have held up far better.
What it means:
Bitcoin isn’t just competing with fiat anymore.
It’s competing with gold, silver, and mega-cap equities as a store of value in an inflationary world. And right now, those competitors are winning on a relative basis.
U.S. tech stocks, like Apple, continue to justify higher valuations through expanding price-to-sales ratios, while gold absorbs capital looking for monetary protection.
BTC tends to lag in these phases but historically leads when market caps start expanding again.
The key takeaway: BTC shouldn’t be judged only in USD terms. Its real signal comes from how it performs against global stores of value and the world’s largest equities.
That’s where the next regime shift will show up first.
ETH Trendline Continuation Play
What’s going on:
ETH is holding above a rising 4H trendline near $2,000. As long as this level holds, price can attempt another push higher.
Key levels we’re watching:
Support: $1,950–$1,980 (trendline)
Resistance: $2,100–$2,150
Higher target: $2,350–$2,450
Breakdown risk: Loss of trendline → $1,750
Directional Bias: Cautiously bullish
What we’re waiting for:
Buyers defending the trendline and a clean push above $2,100.
Money Is Flowing Into Crypto Infrastructure
What’s going on:
Over $2B of VC funding flowed into crypto in Q1, and most of it skipped the usual hype.
Instead of memecoins, new L1s, or loud AI narratives, capital went into infrastructure.
Nearly $500M went into stablecoin infrastructure, reinforcing stablecoins as global payment and settlement rails. As usage grows, fees and activity increasingly accrue to base layers like Ethereum and Tron.
Another $430M flowed into real-world assets, pushing onchain finance beyond treasuries into private credit and commodities.
Custody, compliance, and fintech rails also raised meaningful capital as institutions quietly prepare before deploying size.
What it means:
VCs aren’t chasing short-term speculation. They’re positioning for scale.
Infrastructure reduces friction, unlocks institutional participation, and expands crypto’s addressable market.
Payments, custody, and RWAs are the rails everything else will run on.
A fresh $650M fund from Dragonfly reinforces the point: tokenization and infrastructure come first.
Price follows plumbing. Follow the capital, not the noise.
 | BNB: |
 | LIT: |
 | MNT: |
BTC underperforming gold… what’s your take? |
Crypto’s real edge isn’t volatility or narratives, it’s that it solves coordination, ownership, and payments at internet scale.
As AI agents, governments, and global users come online, centralized systems simply can’t move fast or neutrally enough to support that demand.
The next wave of adoption won’t be ideological, it’ll be invisible, driven by utility rather than belief.
By the time crypto feels boring and embedded everywhere, its most asymmetric phase will already be behind us.
— The Warmup Team
Always do your own research. This newsletter is supplemental material to help educate readers as they make their own decisions. Projects mentioned here are provided to give a potential early-mover advantage.