Bitcoin Trails Gold By 10X, And CZ Thinks That Ends Next Cycle

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said Bitcoin(BTC) could overtake gold in total value during the next bull run, putting the current gap at roughly tenfold.

Key Points:

• Zhao pinned gold’s edge on entrenched custody and valuation systems, not on the metal itself.
• Matching gold’s investable pool alone would require a Bitcoin price near $697,000 per coin.
• Full parity with the $31 trillion above-ground stock implies roughly $1.54 million a coin.

Zhao Ranks Bitcoin Above Gold Reserves

Zhao made the case at the Bitcoin Asia 2026 conference in Hong Kong on Aug. 27, during a session billed as The Bitcoin Century, and a video of the exchange circulated again this weekend.

An interviewer asked him whether the coin could ever matter more to sovereign balance sheets than the metal. He said it would, for sure.

The obstacle is not the asset itself, he argued, but the valuation frameworks, custody arrangements and reserve accounting that governments have spent decades building around bullion. He added that many countries still hold no digital assets at all and should start.

Bitcoin Price Targets For Gold Parity

Bitcoin’s market value sits near $1.6 trillion, with the coin trading around $79,500 over the weekend and its circulating supply just above 20 million. A tenfold gap therefore implies close to $16 trillion of gold. That number tracks the investable pool rather than every ounce ever mined.

Gold’s full above-ground stock runs to roughly 220,000 tonnes, which the metal’s main research body values at about $31 trillion, with more than $15 trillion of that held as bars, coins, funds, central bank reserves and over-the-counter stock. Parity with the larger figure would put Bitcoin near $1.54 million a coin, while one calculation pegs the investable-only target at $697,000.

Why Sovereign Bitcoin Buying Matters

The remarks land while US lawmakers weigh a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, a proposal that would place the asset on the federal balance sheet alongside conventional holdings. Central banks have kept buying physical gold at a record pace.

Zhao named one threat to his forecast, a stronger digital asset winning sovereign trust before Bitcoin does, and dismissed it as unlikely for now.

Ricardo Salinas Pliego, the Mexican billionaire who says most of his liquid portfolio sits in Bitcoin, posted a comparable parity figure of $1.86 million this month.

He put the number at $1.516 million in October 2025, when gold first crossed a $30 trillion valuation, and the gap between the two estimates shows how far the metal has run since.

Bitcoin has moved the other way over that stretch. The coin peaked near $126,000 in October 2025 and now trades below $80,000, a decline of roughly 37% that has held through most of the summer. Gold’s above-ground stock still grows 1% to 2% a year, yet its price has climbed fast enough to push every parity target higher.

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Source: yellow.com