Investors who bought gold in a bid for safety are reaping their rewards in a time of global market turmoil. Those who turned to so-called “digital gold” — that is, bitcoin — are also seeing their bets pay off. Tariff-induced market volatility sent gold futures to all-time highs in April, with the precious metal trading above $3,400 for the first time. Although since coming down from that level, gold futures are still up almost 26% year to date. Investors have been flocking to the precious metal partly due to a weakening dollar and rising global trade tensions. Bitcoin is also higher so far this year, even though it hasn’t caught up to gold’s outsized gains. Bitcoin fell to its low of the year on April 8, but has since soared around 20%. The flagship cryptocurrency is now up less than 1% in 2025. To be sure, bitcoin’s gains still outperforms the S & P 500’s year-to-date decline of more than 6%. While the correlation between gold and bitcoin was mostly positive between 2020 and 2024, the relationship broke down in recent months. But bitcoin’s April moves seem to put the cryptocurrency back on the path for a positive correlation with gold once again. A CNBC analysis of FactSet data found that the 25-week rolling correlation between gold and bitcoin fell this year to -0.42 through the end of March, the lowest correlation between the two assets going back to early 2020. A correlation coefficient of zero suggests that there is no linear relationship between two variables. A reading of -1 suggests two assets have a strong inverse relationship with one another, while 1 implies they have a perfect positive correlation. The correlation between gold and bitcoin rose in April, and it was last at -0.28. This implies that a 1% gain in gold would be met by a 0.28% decline in bitcoin. Bitcoin increasingly viewed as a portfolio diversifier Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth Management, attributed April’s rise in the correlation between gold and bitcoin to investors moving away from viewing the flagship cryptocurrency as a risk-on proxy. Instead, they could be favoring it for its qualities as a portfolio diversifier, or as an “alternative asset that could be helpful in turbulent times,” like gold. “Bitcoin seems to be sort of taking the baton to a certain extent,” he told CNBC. “That’s the new feeling, whereas for most of the last couple of years the tightest correlation you’d likely find with bitcoin was really the Nasdaq 100 as a more risk-on trade. Now, it seems to have transformed over into a place that might have some of the attributes of a more alternative investment.” Specifically, Hogan pointed out that these alternatives — or assets with less correlation to the overall market — are helpful in times of high uncertainty and unease. This might explain why investors have flocked to the asset since April 2, when President Donald Trump announced his “reciprocal” tariffs. This differs from bitcoin’s previous stance as another risk-on investment that could help investors increase and diversify their risk exposure during bull market cycles. Bitcoin’s role as a risk-on asset helps to explain why it outperformed alongside the high-flying technology stocks, Hogan added. “If you were to draw the same chart and trace the correlation between the Nasdaq-100 you’d also see in periods of time — like the last two years — when markets were ramping, that bitcoin was also ramping,” he said. Fundamental differences versus gold But just because the correlation between bitcoin and gold has become less negative, doesn’t mean that the bitcoin’s “digital gold” nickname necessarily rings true. Fundamental differences still exist between the two, which help account for why the correlation between gold and bitcoin was negative for much of the latter half of 2024. For instance, investors have been moving to moving to gold in recent months as a hedge against sticky inflation that continues to run above the Federal Reserve’s desired 2% target. “I think people are looking at bitcoin differently than gold, and gold has been an inflation play. You’re seeing central bankers hoarding it, and that’s kind of the reason why it’s still above $3,000 — the record all-time high,” said Jeff Kilburg, founder and CEO of KKM Financial. Kilburg also pointed out that the difference in bitcoin versus gold could also come down to the investor groups who are attracted to either asset class. “There’s a different DNA in a bitcoin investor,” he said. “I do think that the characteristic of a bitcoin investor is probably more patient and less reactionary than the ‘ Mag Seven ‘ investors.” Is bitcoin more correlated to stocks? Despite this April move, Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s global head of digital assets research, thinks that bitcoin is more closely tied to the Nasdaq than it is to gold, most of the time. Kendrick affirmed in a March note that investors might benefit from viewing bitcoin as both an additional big tech stock and as a hedge against traditional finance, combining the best of both worlds. — CNBC’s Nick Wells contributed to this report.