Crypto Daybook Americas: Gold’s Historic Rally Brings Back BTC’s ‘Store of Value’ Debate

Crypto Daybook Americas

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By James Van Straten, Oliver Knight, Francisco Rodrigues|Edited by Aoyon Ashraf

Mar 14, 2025, 11:16 a.m. UTC

A gold bar (CoinDesk Archives)

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By James Van Straten (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

The recent market turmoil might have given gold the bragging rights of being the “store of value” while “digital gold” struggles, at least for now.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW

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Gold futures for April delivery have surpassed $3,000 an ounce for the first time ever, marking a historic milestone for the precious metal. Spot gold is consolidating just below $3,000 an ounce, up 15% year-to-date, while its digital counterpart, bitcoin (BTC), is struggling—down 12% this year and hovering around $80,000.

This divergence underscores gold’s role as the ultimate safe-haven asset in the current economic environment.

Since mid-February, U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs have experienced only three days of inflows, causing total net inflows to decline from $40 billion to approximately $35 billion, according to Eric Balchunas, a senior Bloomberg ETF analyst.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 has entered correction territory, falling over 10% and struggling to reclaim its 200-day moving average amid escalating geopolitical tensions. Further tariffs imposed by former President Trump and stalled ceasefire negotiations between President Putin and Ukraine have exacerbated global uncertainty.

Andre Dragosch, Head of Research at Bitwise in Europe, attributes gold’s record highs and the U.S. equity sell-off to rising short- and medium-term inflation expectations, coupled with declining consumer confidence.

“The recent rally in gold to new all-time highs likely reflects both increasing inflation expectations and a broader flight to safety,” Dragosch explains. “In fact, both short- and medium-term inflation expectations in the University of Michigan consumer survey have risen to multi-decade highs. U.S. consumers are growing increasingly concerned about inflation, likely due to the Trump administration’s new tariff policies.”

He further notes, “Meanwhile, U.S. equities have been selling off due to mounting economic uncertainty driven by these trade policies, as well as rising recession risks amid a slowdown in the labor market. Both factors have significantly buoyed the price of gold.”

  • Crypto:
  • Macro
    • March 14, 8:00 a.m.: The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) releases January producer price inflation data.
      • PPI MoM Prev. 1.48%
      • PPI YoY Prev. 9.42%
    • March 14, 10:00 a.m.: The University of Michigan’s March (U.S.) Consumer Sentiment (preliminary) index Est. 63.1 vs. Prev. 64.7.
    • March 14, 3:00 p.m.: Argentina’s National Institute of Statistics and Census releases February inflation data.
      • Inflation Rate MoM Est. 2.4% vs. Prev. 2.2%
      • Inflation Rate YoY Est. 66.8 vs. Prev. 84.5%
    • March 16, 10:00 p.m.: The National Bureau of Statistics of China releases February employment data.
      • Unemployment Rate Prev. 5.1%
  • Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
    • March 14: Bit Digital (BTBT), pre-market, $-0.05
    • March 24 (TBC): Galaxy Digital Holdings (TSE: GLXY), C$0.38
  • Governance votes & calls
    • ApeCoin DAO is discussing the establishment of an APE base in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, China. It’s also discussing the creation of ApeSites, which aims to provide the BAYC community an “easy-to-use tool to create personalized websites.”
    • Aave DAO is discussing the launch of Horizon, a licensed instance of the Aave Protocol to allow institutions to “access permissionless stablecoin liquidity while meeting issuer requirements.”
    • Balancer DAO is discussing the deployment of Balancer V3 on OP Mainnet.
    • March 14: CoW DAO’s vote on the incorporation of a 4-entity legal structure for the organization ends.
    • March 14, 10 a.m.: Representatives from Lombard, Etherfi, Coinbase and Curve to participate in an X Spaces session
  • Unlocks
    • March 14: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 2.33% of its circulating supply worth $11.15 million.
    • March 15: Sei (SEI) to unlock 1.19% of its circulating supply worth $10.06 million.
    • March 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 2.1% of its circulating supply worth $32.29 million.
    • March 18: Fasttoken (FTN) to unlock 4.66% of its circulating supply worth $79.80 million.
    • March 21: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.39% of circulating supply worth $12.91 million.
    • March 23: Metars Genesis (MRS) to unlock 11.87% of its circulating supply worth $102.6 million.
    • March 23: Mantra (OM) to unlock 0.51% of its circulating supply worth $31.2 million.
  • Token Listings
    • March 18: Paws (PAWS) to be listed on Bybit.
    • March 31: Binance to delist USDT, FDUSD, TUSD, USDP, DAI, AEUR, UST, USTC, and PAXG.

By Oliver Knight

  • In an otherwise muted day for altcoins, HyperLiquid’s native token is leading the pack, having risen by 9.5% in the past 24 hours. The boost comes as the decentralized exchange topped $1 trillion in cumulative volume this month, with $4.8 billion worth of derivatives in the past day alone.
  • The same cannot be said for other DeFi tokens like AAVE, LIDO and PYTH, which have all been between 19% and 21% down over the past seven days after failing to recover from a market-wide plunge over the weekend.
  • One trader profited a cool $108k after buying Base memecoin doginme on Thursday only for Coinbase to list the token on Friday, spurring a 150% rally.
  • Earlier this morning, the price of Bitcoin bounced to $82,895 from levels below $80,000, hitting a cluster of short liquidations leverage worth $52.1mn, according to CoinGlass. The next significant liquidations leverage level is $79,760, holding liquidations worth $41.9mn.
  • Among the assets with over $100mn in open interest, Chainlink saw the highest 1D percentage gain, rising 35.8% to $409.5mn. PNUT, Near Protocol, Stellar and Trump complete the top five, with their open interest rising 19.7%, 15.8%, 14.8% and 11.8% on the day. Layer-1 Network Sei (SEI) saw the highest decline in open interest, falling 17.2% to $101mn.
  • In the bitcoin options market on Deribit, call options at a $100,000 strike price hold the highest open interest, with a notional value of $1.5 billion, followed by $1.35 billion in open interest at the $120,000 strike. However, the Put-to-Call ratio, currently at 0.52, signals significant put-side interest, with the largest put contracts holding $800 million and $700 million in open interest at strike prices of $80,000 and $75,000, respectively.
  • BTC is up 2.93% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $82,739.17 (24hrs: -0.57%)
  • ETH is up 2.38% at $1,890.23 (24hrs: -0.55%)
  • CoinDesk 20 is up 3.36% at 2,592.81 (24hrs: -0.14%)
  • Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 17 bps at 2.99%
  • BTC funding rate is at 0.0025% (2.79% annualized) on Binance
CoinDesk 20 members’ performance
  • DXY is unchanged at 103.88
  • Gold is up 0.71% at $3,000.95/oz
  • Silver is up 0.83% at $33.97/oz
  • Nikkei 225 closed +0.72% at 37,053.10
  • Hang Seng closed +2.12% at 23,959.98
  • FTSE is up 0.49% at 8,584.53
  • Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.69% at 5,365.00
  • DJIA closed on Thursday -1.3% at 40,813.57
  • S&P 500 closed -1.39% at 5,521.52
  • Nasdaq closed -1.96% at 17,303.01
  • S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.9% at 24,203.23
  • S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.73% at 2,343.21
  • U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 2bps at 4.3%
  • E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.67% at 5,564.75
  • E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.9% at 19,421.50
  • E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.42% at 41,036.00
  • BTC Dominance: 61.82 (0.26%)
  • Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02288 (-0.48%)
  • Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 825 EH/s
  • Hashprice (spot): $47.3
  • Total Fees: 5.55 BTC / $456,716
  • CME Futures Open Interest: 144,785 BTC
  • BTC priced in gold: 27.7 oz
  • BTC vs gold market cap: 7.86%
TA for March 14, 2025
  • Bitcoin has rebounded off its weekly 50-day EMA, a historically significant support level during past uptrends. In previous cycles, this touchpoint often led to a consolidation phase lasting 6 to 9 weeks before resuming momentum.
  • For bulls, maintaining a weekly close above the 50-day EMA is crucial, as sustained price action below this level could signal deeper weakness. Additionally, reclaiming the yearly open—aligned with previous range lows—would strengthen bullish conviction.
  • Without this reclaim, any short-term bounces may risk turning into bearish retests, reinforcing the breakdown in market structure on the weekly timeframe.
  • Strategy (MSTR): closed on Thursday at $263.26 (+0.27%), up 3.34% at $272.04 in pre-market
  • Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $177.49 (-7.43%), up 2.89% at $182.62
  • Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$16.62 (-5.03%)
  • MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $12.16 (-7.25%), up 3.37% at $12.57
  • Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.31 (-6.88%), up 2.74% at $7.51
  • Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $8.66 (-3.24%), down 2.89% at $8.91
  • CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.69 (-5.06%), up 3.25% at $7.94
  • CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $14.57 (-4.71%)
  • Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $32.62 (-2.92%)
  • Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $26.08 (-4.92%), down 3.6% at $25.14

Spot BTC ETFs:

  • Daily net flow: -$135.2 million
  • Cumulative net flows: $35.35 billion
  • Total BTC holdings ~ 1,115 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

  • Daily net flow: -$73.6 million
  • Cumulative net flows: $2.58 billion
  • Total ETH holdings ~ 3.545 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Top 20 digital assets’ prices and volumes
Chart of the Day, March 14 2025
  • With Gold reaching a new all-time high of $3,000, the Gold/BTC ratio has reached 0.037, the highest level since the U.S. elections on Nov. 5th.
No end in sight for Bitcoin ETF outflows.
Solana proposal failed
Libra's poor volume
Stablecoin growth
Happy Holi

James Van Straten is a Senior Analyst at CoinDesk, specializing in Bitcoin and its interplay with the macroeconomic environment. Previously, James worked as a Research Analyst at Saidler & Co., a Swiss hedge fund, where he developed expertise in on-chain analytics. His work focuses on monitoring flows to analyze Bitcoin’s role within the broader financial system.
In addition to his professional endeavors, James serves as an advisor to Coinsilium, a UK publicly traded company, where he provides guidance on their Bitcoin treasury strategy. He also holds investments in Bitcoin, MicroStrategy (MSTR), and Semler Scientific (SMLR).

James Van Straten

Oliver Knight is the co-leader of CoinDesk data tokens and data team. Before joining CoinDesk in 2022 Oliver spent three years as the chief reporter at Coin Rivet. He first started investing in bitcoin in 2013 and spent a period of his career working at a market making firm in the UK. He does not currently have any crypto holdings.

Oliver Knight

Francisco is a reporter for CoinDesk with a passion for cryptocurrencies and personal finance. Before joining CoinDesk he worked at major financial and crypto publications. He owns bitcoin, ether, solana, and PAXG above CoinDesk’s $1,000 disclosure threshold.

Francisco Rodrigues


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