Gold and Bitcoin are viewed by many as hedges against government and Federal Reserve policies that reduce the purchasing power of the US dollar.
Google Sheets, available as part of consumer Gmail and organization-wide Google Workspace, allows users to easily create trend charts based on any source connected to a Google Sheet.
There is a GOOGLEFINANCE function for the previous day’s Bitcoin close in US dollars, BTCUSD.
There is currently no function for the spot price of gold; however, there is a function for gold futures, specifically GCW00. There are functions for gold miner ETFs, such as GDX, GDXJ, and EPGFX.
A request was submitted to Google to create functions for spot metal prices, but there has been no response.
Comparing Bitcoin’s vs Gold’s Performance in Sheets
We used the following GOOGLEFINANCE function to create the trend line in the embedded Google Sheets chart below.
=GOOGLEFINANCE(“CURRENCY:BTCUSD”, “price”, DATE(2025,1,1), DATE(2025,12,31), “DAILY”)
Google’s disclaimer is, “Quotes are not sourced from all markets and may be delayed up to 20 minutes. Information is provided ‘as is’ and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice.”
The real-time sources for the spot gold price are not readily available. We are currently using the Gold Continuous Contract (futures) price per ounce, which is sometimes delayed by several days.
That GOOGLEFINANCE function looks like this, where ‘B89’ references a date in a cell.
=index(GOOGLEFINANCE(“GCW00″,”price”,B89),2,2)
Note: the chart may take up to 30 seconds to load from Google Docs. Here is the source Google Sheet, which includes a full-screen view of the chart.
Here is the Bitcoin-to-Gold Continuous Contract ratio. It shows a trend of approximately what one Bitcoin is worth in ounces of gold.
This chart compares Bitcoin to the GDX gold miners ETF.
Historically, there has been a noticeable correlation between interest in the search term “bitcoin” and the Bitcoin price chart.
As interest in a commodity grows (even a virtual commodity), so does demand. As demand rises, given a constant supply, prices rise.
When Bitcoin Leapfrogged Gold
Cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, have been disruptive technologies that the internet has fostered.
In this case, precious metals have been the disrupted item. Even though gold coins have physical properties, the virtual has outdone the physical by a wide margin in terms of market value.
In May 2017, the price of Bitcoin surpassed the price of gold in U.S. dollars. From there, Bitcoin continued its ascent toward over USD 100,000.
The Bitcoin price has proven to be more volatile than gold. Bitcoin has seen 20% or more price swings in a matter of days, while the price of gold changes more slowly, with the most significant daily swings on the order of 2%.
Bitcoin: Digital Gold?
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has referred to Bitcoin as “Digital Gold.”
There has been a shift to viewing Bitcoin as a store of value rather than a medium of exchange.
Contrarians view Bitcoin as a speculative asset, lacking the income value of traditional assets such as equities and real estate investments.
While Bitcoin does not have physical properties like gold, it has a limited supply. There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoins or 2.1 quadrillion Sats.
