Bitcoin and gold touted as hedges against currency debasement as US debt tops $40 trillion

The US government now owes more than $40 trillion. That number crossed the threshold in August 2026, and the Treasury Department responded by announcing extensive long-term debt buybacks.

The result has been predictable. Treasuries are falling, the dollar is declining, and investors are rotating into Bitcoin and gold.

The debasement trade is back

Bitcoin climbed roughly 23% in late August 2026, pushing above $77,000, while gold prices rose in tandem as the dollar weakened.

The 90-day correlation between Bitcoin and gold hit multi-year highs in early September, surpassing 0.5.

Options market data as of mid-September paints two very different pictures of trader sentiment. Gold is seeing overwhelming bullish positioning, with a more than 5:1 ratio of calls to puts on SPDR Gold Shares. Bitcoin ETF options, by contrast, show a much more balanced distribution of bullish and bearish bets.

Why the split in sentiment matters

The divergence in options positioning tells a deeper story about where each asset sits in the institutional comfort hierarchy. While Bitcoin has increasingly attracted institutional capital through spot ETFs and corporate treasury allocations, its tendency to behave as a high-beta asset adds complexity. When markets sell off hard, Bitcoin has historically sold off harder.

The portfolio case for blending both

Recent research from Bitwise found that a 15% allocation split between Bitcoin and gold achieved a Sharpe ratio of 0.679, nearly tripling the Sharpe ratio of a traditional 60/40 stock-and-bond portfolio.

Research from Nansen has reached complementary conclusions, pointing to better risk-adjusted returns from blended allocations that include both digital and physical hard assets.

Institutional flows reflect this shifting calculus. Exchange-traded funds for both Bitcoin and gold have seen increased inflows amid the fiscal turbulence.

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