Bloomberg’s ETF Analyst Says Bitcoin Funds Will Triple Gold Hours After Admitting They Burned Cash
Bloomberg's top ETF analyst made two posts ninety minutes apart that told very different stories about Bitcoin funds, and the price charts make one of those posts much harder to defend than the other.
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Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas told his followers on X Thursday that Bitcoin ETFs will one day “triple gold in assets”. He posted that forecast at 12:11 PM ET. Ninety minutes earlier, at 10:46 AM ET, he conceded on the same platform that by one common industry definition Bitcoin ETFs have “in fact burned cash.”
The scoreboard between the two flagship funds makes the split-screen even sharper. Over the past year, the iShares Bitcoin Trust (NASDAQ:IBIT) is down 34.44%, while SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE:GLD) is up 17.67% and up 143.99% over five years.
Two Posts, Ninety Minutes Apart
The Bloomberg analyst’s morning began with a definitional retreat. Replying to a follower, he wrote: “Burn cash = flows are greater than dif in assets from beginning to end of period. In that def it has in fact burned cash.” Translation for anyone who doesn’t live in fund-flow spreadsheets: more money came in than the assets grew to reflect, meaning the price action ate the inflows.
By lunch, the tone had flipped. Explaining why he sees Bitcoin funds eventually lapping gold funds, Balchunas cited three reasons on X: “1) btc leans younger, gold older 2) it will get used more by big money as it matures and settles down w both vol and corr 3) way more enthusiasm and sales firepower. no one is out there talking about gold ETFs but you got dozens of wholesalers.”
He added later in the thread: “All that said, gold isn’t going anywhere. It’s been around for 5000 years. It’s mentioned in the Bible 400 times. I can’t not respect that. I just think it will be lapped by bitcoin ETFs as a category long term.”
Gold ETFs Nobody’s Talking About Are Beating Bitcoin
The line that “no one is out there talking about gold ETFs” lands awkwardly next to the price action. GLD closed Wednesday and traded higher Thursday, sitting at $399.58 intraday, up 2% on the session and up 219.51% over ten years. Its expense ratio, per the SPDR fact sheet, is 0.40%.
IBIT, by contrast, was changing hands at $43.51, down from $66.37 a year ago. Year to date the Bitcoin fund is off 12.37%. It has rallied 19.47% over the past month, which is the piece of the chart bulls are pointing to.
Asked in the same thread whether the outperformance changed his call, Balchunas said he wasn’t playing that game and noted the prediction was made a while ago in an old note. He is not walking it back.
What It Means for ETF Investors
The demographic bet embedded in the forecast is the interesting part. Balchunas earlier Thursday wrote that Bitcoin was “more an allocation for ppl than just flavor of month”, arguing the category is holding up while it’s out of favor. His triple-gold thesis rests on younger investors inheriting wealth and defaulting to Bitcoin as a store of value rather than bullion.
The bear framing matches the price action: Bitcoin funds have been the worse holding for a year now, and no amount of wholesaler enthusiasm changes the drawdown that current IBIT holders are sitting on. The bull framing is that flows have stayed sticky through the pain, which Balchunas reads as maturation rather than fatigue.
Neither side gets to invoke assets under management as the tiebreaker in this piece. No sourced AUM figure was disclosed in the thread for either fund.
What to Watch Next
The numbers to track are whether IBIT’s month-long 19.47% bounce holds and whether gold’s 17.67% one-year lead over Bitcoin narrows into year end. Balchunas is betting on decades. The past twelve months belong to the metal.
Data Sources
- Balchunas “triple gold” post on X: used for the primary forecast quote, timestamp, and three-part rationale.
- Balchunas “burned cash” post on X: used for the earlier concession quote and timestamp that sets up the contradiction.
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Jake has been been working in financial media for almost 15 years. He focuses on all things personal finance for 24/7 Wall St. with high hopes to educate and entertain. Most recently, Jake spent 12 years working various roles at The Motley Fool. He started copy editing fool.com content, worked on premium and marketing campaigns, and helped launch The Ascent, a personal finance brand.
His work has been featured on platforms like MSN, Yahoo Finance, USA Today, and more. He's written about credit cards, social security, ETFs, savings accounts, and just about anything else you can imagine when thinking about money. Jake love to cook, play golf, and tell people he's never had a cavity. (It's true!)
