Billionaire Ray Dalio feels the debate between gold and bitcoin has a clear winner.
In his opinion, the precious metal remains the ultimate safe haven, while bitcoin mostly behaves like a risk asset rather than a true store of value.
Dalio, speaking on the All-In Podcast, argued that investors can’t treat the two popular assets as interchangeable hedges, CoinDesk reported.
He said gold still occupies a remarkably unique role in the global financial system that bitcoin cannot replicate at this point.
For perspective, per GoldPrice.org’s latest available closing price on March 7, gold traded at $5,170.48 per ounce, or about $166.23 per gram. As per the same source, silver was trading at $84.36 per ounce, or nearly $2.71 per gram.
At the time of writing, bitcoin traded at about $66,037.
However, over the past month, the trend has been remarkably volatile, with Reuters reporting Bitcoin dropping as low as $63,295.74 on Feb. 5, and then rebounding to $73,777 on March 4.
I last wrote about Dalio when his hedge fundBridgewater, from which he has now retired, made a conviction-driven addition to Nvidia, increasing its stake by nearly $253 million to $721 million at year-end.
The core idea behind that buy was that, despite the recent choppiness in the AI bellwether’s stock, Bridgewater still treated it as a critical pillar of the AI infrastructure buildout, along with other core tech bets, including Oracle and Micron.
On gold specifically, in my Feb. 5, 2026, piece, I covered Dalio’s blunt take on the shiny yellow metal from the World Governments Summit in Dubai.
Even after the wobbles at the time, Dalio laid out the case for gold being “the safest money.” He widened the lens further, warning that we are globally moving closer to a “capital war,” a time when capital and currency become critical battlegrounds.
“There is only one gold,” Dalio said.
That punchy take reflects Dalio’s broader worldview at the time, pointing to a global financial system entering a more volatile phase, as traditional hedges become increasingly important.
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1 month/30 days:
Bitcoin: -2.59% S&P 500: -2.77% Gold: +4.18% -
6 months:
Bitcoin: -39.28% S&P 500: +3.99% Gold: +39.46% -
1 year:
Bitcoin: -22.26% S&P 500: +17.45% Gold: +74.34% -
5 years:
Bitcoin: +32.40% S&P 500: +75.43% Gold: +200.85% -
Longest dated period shown:
Bitcoin (10 years): +16,207.23% S&P 500 (10 years): +237.00% Gold (20 years): +816.17% -
Source: Goldprice.org, Seeking Alpha
Dalio believes that although gold and bitcoin are often grouped together and treated as competing safe havens, the market treats them differently when things go south, Business Insider reported.
