Bitcoin maxis and gold bugs set to battle it out in ETF turf war on Wall Street

A new war just broke out on Wall Street, and this one doesn’t involve banks or bailouts—it’s a brutal face-off between Bitcoin maxis and gold bugs, and it’s being fought through exchange-traded funds.

This week, Tidal Financial Group filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to launch two aggressive long-short ETFs. One will back Bitcoin while betting against gold, and the other will do the opposite.

The firm is pushing these under its Battleshares brand, turning the never-ending pissing contest between crypto and metal into a market product.

According to Bloomberg, the funds would give investors a loud, one-click way to pick a side in one of finance’s most ideological fights. For years, Bitcoin fans have pitched the coin as digital gold, a hard cap alternative to money printing.

Meanwhile, gold defenders see the shiny rock as the only real hedge when things fall apart. Now, those opposing views are being baked into ETFs that use swaps, options, and short sales to go all-in on whichever asset traders think wins in a shit-hits-the-fan scenario.

Tidal monetizes the Bitcoin vs gold culture war

The Bitcoin-long/gold-short product is for those who think the crypto crowd finally has the edge. The gold-long/Bitcoin-short version is for the boomers who believe the digital coin is still a tech bro fantasy.

Dhaval Joshi, chief strategist at Counterpoint, said this feels like a personal win. He sees both Bitcoin and gold as part of the same asset class—things governments can’t easily seize or kill. “Bitcoin will gradually grab market share from gold,” Joshi said. “So long BTC/short gold should trend higher over time, while short BTC/long gold will trend lower.” He’s made the argument for years, and now it’s being packaged in a product regular investors can use.

But not everyone’s cheering. Brent Donnelly, president of Spectra FX Solutions, thinks the whole thing is unnecessary noise. “It feels gimmicky and unnecessary,” Donnelly said. “Most people bullish on Bitcoin are also bullish on gold.” He pointed out that anyone could already build the same trade using BlackRock’s IBIT for Bitcoin and State Street’s GLD for gold. “These ETFs just add friction.”

That said, both assets are moving on very different timelines. Gold has hit new highs in 2025 thanks to fear over US asset stability during the trade war. At the same time, Bitcoin crashed alongside other risky stocks in early April. But once the White House, now led by Donald Trump, leaned deeper into crypto and signaled upcoming trade deals, Bitcoin came back strong.

“Bitcoin continues to trade as a risky asset, tracking Nasdaq very closely with a few exceptions,” Donnelly said. He added that “gold is more of a ‘Sell America’ proxy these days.”

Retail traders are eating this up. Their appetite for risk hasn’t dropped. Even after markets went nuts in April, they came storming back. And just this week, Bitcoin hit $100,000 on Thursday, while gold dipped following the Fed’s decision to hold rates steady.

This back-and-forth is exactly why investors are divided. Some are hedging inflation. Others are betting on chaos. And FOMO is dragging billions into both sides. So far in 2025, over $14 billion has flowed into the top four gold ETFs, while the leading Bitcoin ETFs have collected $8 billion.

Charlie Morris, CIO at Bytetree Asset Management, isn’t picking a winner. His fund, BOLD, splits the difference by allocating to both Bitcoin and gold. “I believe Bitcoin and gold both benefit from this era of macroeconomic uncertainty, but at different times,” Morris said. “Gold tends to do better when there is geopolitical uncertainty, and Bitcoin when things are going well.”

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