Both precious metals wiped billions of dollars off their respective market capitalizations in just one day of trading.
Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency industry are often blamed for being too volatile and immature for traditional investors, a claim that proved true once again at the end of the trading week.
At the same time, safe-haven assets like gold and silver are praised for their stability, especially in times of uncertainty. However, that is not what happened on Thursday and Friday.
Double-digit precious metal drops
2025 became the year of precious metals and the beginning of 2026 only cemented this claim. Take gold, for example. It entered the new year at $4,300 an ounce, but rising geopolitical tension, as well as the falling value of the dollar, drove it to consecutive all-time highs, the latest of which occurred on Thursday at $5,600. This meant a huge 30% increase in just one month.
Silver’s performance was even more impressive in the same period: a 70% increase from an entry price of $72 in 2026 to a high of $122 on January 29.
However, what happened in the next 24 hours was the opposite and brutal. These overly praised (and perhaps overbought) precious metals plummeted by double digits. Gold fell to $4,700, down 16% in one day, while silver essentially erased all yearly gains in a 40% drop to $73. Although both recovered to $4,900 and $85, respectively, they still ended the trading day in the red, showing atypical volatility.
The reasons behind this calamity are still debated: some argue about long-overdue profit-taking, while others blame Trump’s nominee for next Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh. However, the reality is that the two largest assets by market cap erased approximately $7 billion from their market caps in just one day, an amount that is more than twice as large as the entire crypto industry.
Gold and silver wiped $6.7 trillion from their market capitalization in 30 hours.#Bitcoin MCap is $1.64 trillion.
“We arrived very early” is an understatement. pic.twitter.com/ZQhxlwEH0F
– Davinci Jeremie (@Davincij15) January 30, 2026
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Not just BTC, huh?
For years, critics of cryptocurrencies have accused the industry and its market leader in particular of being too volatile and unstable for traditional investors. We’re not saying they’re completely wrong, as BTC also fell from over $90,000 to $81,000 in about 24 hours. However, these fluctuations are more typical of an asset class that has been around for less than 20 years, unlike century-old precious metals.
The crypto community quickly took advantage of the movements in gold and silver. CZ attempted to reassure some BTC skeptics, stating that bitcoin is a “17-year-old technology, heavily repressed for most of its existence.” He added that “we are still early.”
Santiment praised BTC’s resilience on Friday at a time when silver and gold were sinking hard, and outlined the debate over whether precious metals investors will eventually turn to cryptocurrencies.
🤯 While debates have circulated about whether precious metals would see their gains begin to flow into cryptocurrencies, this certainly wasn’t on many people’s bingo cards:
🥇 The price of gold fell more than -8% today
🥈 The price of silver fell more than -25% todayHe… pic.twitter.com/c6eZJmonkz
– Sentiment (@santimentfeed) January 30, 2026
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