Michaël van de Poppe, a familiar voice in crypto-charting circles, has flagged what he calls a “bullish divergence” between Bitcoin and gold, a signal he believes could herald a sustained Bitcoin breakout as gold consolidates. “The bullish divergence on BTC vs. Gold is coming into play. Therefore, a strong breakout upwards as Gold consolidates and Bitcoin breaks out. I would expect this metric to continue showing strength as the Bitcoin in Gold bear market has finished,” van de Poppe wrote on X, attaching a ratio chart that shows Bitcoin’s recent relative weakness bottoming against the yellow metal.
The observation arrives against fresh upside in Bitcoin’s spot price. As markets opened on March 4, Bitcoin was trading above the $70,000 mark after a rally that pushed prices into the low $70,000s. Traders and analysts say the move is being driven by a combination of macro headlines, ETF flows and technical rebalancing after a prolonged period of underperformance versus gold.
Institutional flows offer context for why a BTC–gold divergence matters right now. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded strong inflows in recent sessions, with one-day flows in the hundreds of millions, a reminder that big, patient capital can quickly tilt the market’s supply-demand balance. Analysts flagged one of the quarter’s largest single-day ETF inflow days, a factor that coincided with Bitcoin’s rebound.
End of the Relative Bear Market?
More structural research into the BTC/gold ratio suggests van de Poppe’s view is not an outlier. Some market technicians have identified a multi-month window, roughly 14 months in recent cycle comparisons, where the ratio tends to find an exhaustion bottom, setting the stage for Bitcoin to outperform. That pattern, which has shown up in prior cycles, is being pointed to by traders who believe the worst of the relative bear market may be behind us.
Macro and geopolitical noise will still matter. Throughout February and into March, headlines out of the Middle East and shifting risk sentiment among global investors produced sharp intraday swings across risk assets and safe havens, including gold. For market watchers, a true validation of the BTC–gold bullish divergence would be sustained strength in Bitcoin even as gold flattens or fails to rally materially, a relative performance call rather than a simple long-only thesis.
Analysts mapping correlations have argued that a leadership rotation toward Bitcoin over gold could yield large percentage gains for BTC if it persists. What should traders take away? Van de Poppe’s call is a technical read with macro corroboration. If ETFs keep drawing capital and the BTC/gold ratio indeed shows a recovery out of its cycle bottom, Bitcoin could see a multi-week extension higher.
But as always, the path won’t be linear. Geopolitical shocks, liquidity shifts and derivatives positioning can squeeze prices both ways. For now, traders will watch whether Bitcoin holds the new higher ground above $70k and whether gold’s price action confirms the consolidation van de Poppe expects. If both conditions line up, that bullish divergence could go from a chart note to a market narrative.
