Veteran Economist Warns Bitcoin Could Face Sharp Downside as Silver Surges

Bitcoin 2025-12-29 18:16

Veteran Economist Warns Bitcoin Could Face Sharp Downside as Silver Surges

Silver’s explosive breakout has added fuel to a growing debate about where capital is really flowing - and it has given Bitcoin skeptics fresh confidence.

Peter Schiff seized on the move to argue that markets may be entering a phase where momentum decisively favors hard assets, while Bitcoin risks being left on the wrong side of the trade.

Key Takeaways

  • Silver’s surge has reignited debate over a possible shift in investor preference away from Bitcoin and toward hard assets.

  • The BTC-silver ratio shows silver sharply outperforming Bitcoin, reinforcing the idea of active capital rotation.

  • Peter Schiff argues that if sentiment turns against Bitcoin, the downside could unfold quickly rather than gradually.

Schiff’s warning was less about ideology and more about mechanics. He emphasized that when investor preference changes, it rarely unfolds in a balanced way. Rallies often build gradually, but declines tend to compress into short, aggressive moves. In that framework, silver’s acceleration matters not just as a price event, but as evidence of rotation.

Silver’s strength shows up against Bitcoin

That rotation becomes clearer when silver is measured relative to Bitcoin. Analyst Daan Crypto Trades pointed out that the BTC-silver ratio has swung sharply in silver’s favor. In just four months, silver has gained roughly 190% relative to Bitcoin – a move that previously took Bitcoin more than a year to achieve during its 2024-2025 advance. The ratio has now slipped back below levels last seen around Bitcoin’s 2017 highs, highlighting how decisively the balance has shifted.

Silver’s latest price surge reinforced that message. The metal didn’t grind higher on thin volume; it exploded upward. Prices pushed beyond $79 per ounce in a near-vertical move that unfolded in roughly ninety minutes. Charts from TradingView show momentum chasing rather than cautious positioning, extending a trend that had already been building for months.

Capital rotation reaches beyond physical metals

For Schiff, the relative-performance data strengthens his broader thesis. If silver can outperform Bitcoin so aggressively in such a short window, it suggests capital is actively reallocating rather than merely hedging. That theme is also visible in the growth of commodity-linked digital assets. Tokenized metals have climbed toward a combined valuation near $4 billion, showing that even crypto-native investors are seeking exposure to hard assets.

Institutional behavior supports the narrative. Data from CompaniesMarketCap shows silver’s total market value narrowing the gap with NVIDIA, an unusual comparison that underscores how much attention the metal is attracting. In Schiff’s view, that kind of convergence reflects sustained demand rather than a short-lived speculative spike.

Taken together, the price action, the BTC-silver ratio, and the rise of commodity-linked instruments point to the same question: is this just a sharp relative move, or the early stage of a broader shift away from Bitcoin toward metals? Schiff’s answer is clear. If the market truly rotates, he believes Bitcoin’s downside reaction will not be slow or orderly – it will be fast, asymmetric, and driven by the same momentum now lifting silver.

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This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.

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