Bloomberg’s ETF Analyst Says Bitcoin Funds Will Triple Gold Hours After Admitting They Burned Cash
Balchunas conceded IBIT burned cash, then forecast Bitcoin ETFs will triple GLD, despite GLD outperforming IBIT by roughly 52% over the past year.
Balchunas' long-term bull case rests on younger investors defaulting to Bitcoin over gold as they inherit generational wealth and institutions mature their allocations.
Bloomberg's senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas told his followers on X Thursday that Bitcoin ETFs will one day "triple gold in assets". He posted that forecast at 12:11 PM ET. Ninety minutes earlier, at 10:46 AM ET, he conceded on the same platform that by one common industry definition Bitcoin ETFs have "in fact burned cash."
The scoreboard between the two flagship funds makes the split-screen even sharper. Over the past year, the iShares Bitcoin Trust ( NASDAQ:IBIT ) is down 34.44%, while SPDR Gold Trust ( NYSE:GLD ) is up 17.67% and up 143.99% over five years.
The Bloomberg analyst's morning began with a definitional retreat. Replying to a follower, he wrote: "Burn cash = flows are greater than dif in assets from beginning to end of period. In that def it has in fact burned cash." Translation for anyone who doesn't live in fund-flow spreadsheets: more money came in than the assets grew to reflect, meaning the price action ate the inflows.
By lunch, the tone had flipped. Explaining why he sees Bitcoin funds eventually lapping gold funds, Balchunas cited three reasons on X: "1) btc leans younger, gold older 2) it will get used more by big money as it matures and settles down w both vol and corr 3) way more enthusiasm and sales firepower. no one is out there talking about gold ETFs but you got dozens of wholesalers."
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He added later in the thread: "All that said, gold isn't going anywhere. It's been around for 5000 years. It's mentioned in the Bible 400 times. I can't not respect that. I just think it will be lapped by bitcoin ETFs as a category long term."
The line that "no one is out there talking about gold ETFs" lands awkwardly next to the price action. GLD closed Wednesday and traded higher Thursday, sitting at $399.58 intraday, up 2% on the session and up 219.51% over ten years. Its expense ratio, per the SPDR fact sheet, is 0.40%.
IBIT, by contrast, was changing hands at $43.51, down from $66.37 a year ago. Year to date the Bitcoin fund is off 12.37%. It has rallied 19.47% over the past month, which is the piece of the chart bulls are pointing to.
Asked in the same thread whether the outperformance changed his call, Balchunas said he wasn't playing that game and noted the prediction was made a while ago in an old note. He is not walking it back.
The demographic bet embedded in the forecast is the interesting part. Balchunas earlier Thursday wrote that Bitcoin was "more an allocation for ppl than just flavor of month", arguing the category is holding up while it's out of favor. His triple-gold thesis rests on younger investors inheriting wealth and defaulting to Bitcoin as a store of value rather than bullion.
The bear framing matches the price action: Bitcoin funds have been the worse holding for a year now, and no amount of wholesaler enthusiasm changes the drawdown that current IBIT holders are sitting on. The bull framing is that flows have stayed sticky through the pain, which Balchunas reads as maturation rather than fatigue.
Neither side gets to invoke assets under management as the tiebreaker in this piece. No sourced AUM figure was disclosed in the thread for either fund.
The numbers to track are whether IBIT's month-long 19.47% bounce holds and whether gold's 17.67% one-year lead over Bitcoin narrows into year end. Balchunas is betting on decades. The past twelve months belong to the metal.
Balchunas "triple gold" post on X: used for the primary forecast quote, timestamp, and three-part rationale.
Balchunas "burned cash" post on X: used for the earlier concession quote and timestamp that sets up the contradiction.
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