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Economist Explains Why Gold Is Beating Bitcoin | Bob Murphy

1/28/2026 · 32 min · transcript via mlx

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Key topics

— Gold has outperformed Bitcoin over the past 12 months due to concerns about U.S. dollar hegemony, central bank diversification, and geopolitical multipolarization rather than immediate economic crisis scenarios.

— The Federal Reserve maintains political control despite claims of independence; the White House and Fed are currently in tension over monetary policy, particularly regarding mortgage-backed securities and deficit financing.

— Tariffs implemented by the Trump administration have not been highly inflationary as predicted, partly because they're coupled with tax cuts, deregulation, and supply-side economic policies that offset negative effects.

— Stablecoin regulation through the Genius Act has suppressed interest payments that would otherwise allow stablecoin holders to earn yields, protecting traditional banking but limiting financial innovation.

— Government economic data, including BLS inflation figures, employs subjective adjustments (hedonic quality corrections) that obscure true price inflation experienced by consumers.

Market & price signals

— Gold has significantly outperformed Bitcoin in the past year as central banks accumulate gold reserves while the U.S. official gold supply remains flat despite speculation about legitimacy. China and Russia have vastly increased gold holdings since 2000. Treasury yields shifting by one percentage point across maturities would add $380 billion in annual interest expense on the $38 trillion national debt. U.S. Treasury securities held by the Federal Reserve total over $4 trillion, more than the next five to six countries combined (China holds roughly $686 billion). Stablecoin market capitalization reflects significant dollar-based tokenization on blockchains, with Tether alone holding nearly $200 billion in treasuries.

Actionable insights

— Evaluate your exposure to both gold and Bitcoin as complementary hedges rather than competitors; gold may be preferable in extreme uncertainty scenarios while Bitcoin offers long-term technological optionality, but diversification across sound money assets reduces concentration risk.

— Monitor Federal Reserve balance sheet moves and Treasury yield curves closely, as shifts in monetary policy coordination with the executive branch directly impact real borrowing costs and may signal stagflation or inflation persistence despite official government statistics.

— Scrutinize official inflation data using alternative metrics like Truflation; official government statistics employ hedonic quality adjustments and subjective methodologies that systematically downplay price inflation, so cross-check with real-world spending patterns and commodity prices to understand true purchasing power erosion.

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