JPMorgan analysts say bitcoin could draw more price support than gold if investors start unwinding the defensive hedges built around bitcoin ETFs, a positioning gap the bank laid out in a report published Wednesday.
The team, led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, compared how the two assets have recovered from the outflows they suffered earlier in 2026. Gold funds have won back everything they lost. Bitcoin funds have recovered only about half.
Both asset classes attracted inflows after the Federal Reserve’s late-July meeting, when the so-called debasement trade returned. That trade, buying scarce assets as a hedge against currency weakness and inflation, had faded earlier in the year. It weakened again over the past week as inflation-adjusted bond yields rose and the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act, the bill meant to settle how US regulators split oversight of digital asset markets.
The flows tell half the story
SoSoValue data cited in the report show bitcoin ETFs pulled in roughly $4.23 billion between July 31 and September 4. The streak then reversed. The week ending September 11 saw $462.73 million in net outflows, and the September 16 reading showed another $586.27 million leaving. On September 15 alone, the day the Senate’s 49-50 cloture vote failed, US spot bitcoin ETFs shed $450.4 million, their worst day since June. Farside Investors data show the June 25 record stands at $691.7 million.
Gold told a different story. Global gold ETFs added about $18 billion in August, the second-largest monthly inflow on record according to the World Gold Council, and the category has clawed back its full 2026 deficit. Even this week’s headline outflow from the biggest fund was less than it looked: GLD lost $603 million in the week ending September 12, but three cheaper funds tracking the same trade, GLDM, IAU and IAUM, gained a combined $403 million, per ETF Action data. That is fee-driven rotation between wrappers, not investors leaving gold.
Positioning favors bitcoin, conditionally
The more interesting part of the JPMorgan note is not flows but positioning. Short interest in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) sits near its highest level of the year. Short interest in the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) is below its historical average. The put-to-call open interest ratio on IBIT also runs above GLD’s, meaning options traders are paying for more downside protection on bitcoin than on gold.
“From a positioning point of view, the more elevated short interest in the IBIT vs. GLD ETF could create more support for bitcoin vs gold from here if hedging demand is reduced,” the analysts wrote.
The logic is mechanical. If put buyers close positions and shorts cover while keeping their underlying exposure, the unwinding itself becomes a source of demand. Gold has no comparable slack to release, because nobody is leaning against it to the same degree. Traders who bought puts on IBIT did so at a premium precisely because the market prices bitcoin as the riskier of the two hedges.
The macro backdrop works against a fast unwind
Nothing in the report suggests hedges will vanish soon. CoinShares’ Friday market update called the setup difficult into year-end, arguing a decisive break above $80,000 is unlikely without either an inflation improvement or a shift in monetary policy expectations. The firm pointed to the Iran conflict as the variable keeping oil, and therefore inflation, elevated. Brent has held above $100 this week, and the Fed’s September message was firmly hawkish. The removal of expected easing through 2027 in the dot plot supports the dollar and short-dated yields, delaying the liquidity conditions bitcoin usually responds to.
Bitcoin traded near $77,000 early Friday before rallying past $80,000 mid-session, a level it had not held in more than ten days. The move forced roughly $260 million of crypto short liquidations in a single session, per Coinglass-based data, with ether, bitcoin and Zcash among the biggest contributors. Ether topped $2,550 and XRP pushed above $1.35 in the same session. Gold futures gained 0.49% to $4,421.30 an ounce in early Friday trading on TheStreet’s tape. JPMorgan’s separate long-term forecast still sees gold near $5,000 by the fourth quarter, supported by central bank buying and debt sustainability concerns.
What the report does not claim
The bank’s analysts were careful with the claim. They acknowledged other factors will shape both assets and framed the hedging gap as one input, not a prediction. Short-interest figures arrive with a reporting delay, which obscures whether a given short is a directional bet or a hedge against a long elsewhere. A market maker running delta-neutral books can look bearish on paper without holding a bearish view at all.
It is also the second bitcoin-over-gold call from the desk this year, after a February note set a long-term $266,000 target. That call arrived during the debasement trade’s first run and has not been tested by the months since.
There is a regulatory angle too. The analysts noted the CLARITY Act’s failure hits altcoins harder than bitcoin, since bitcoin’s regulatory status is already settled while much of the stablecoin payment infrastructure sits on Ethereum and similar networks. That asymmetry is part of why gold’s recovery has outpaced bitcoin’s despite both sitting in the same macro trade.
For now the market is reading the report as one more reason the next bitcoin leg depends on flows rather than headlines. If IBIT shorts do unwind, the move could be fast. If they stay, bitcoin keeps trading like the more contested of the two debasement assets.