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It’s been a slow week with Christmas, and the traditional markets were closed yesterday. BTC was slightly lower (-0.4%) on flat volumes across the board, reflecting holiday stability. With quiet price action, it’s a good time to step back, think about 2025, think about 2026.
Bitcoin has been doing very well this year, but its performance against gold and silver is quite surprising. In retrospect, these two will be remembered as the most famous wealth of 2025, a surprising result that you could have predicted at the beginning of the year. Gold is having its best year since 1979, up nearly 72% year-to-date and recently rising above $4,500 an ounce. Silver has performed exceptionally well, rallying nearly 160% year to date and nearly 45% in the past month alone, reaching a price of ~$75 an ounce yesterday.
Looking to the future, 2026 may present encouraging opportunities in liquid tokens. Many DeFi names are trading near multi-year lows, although fundamentals and forward-looking growth remain strong. Most importantly, the capture of value has shifted from technology to software: At Solana, for example, software is now generating 3x the online revenue. The most important question for investors is if, and when, valuations will begin to reflect this new reality.
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